Rhapsody Redux
by potsiesgirl
Summary: Rhapsody Redux is a reunion songfic in varying movements as Pacey and Joey dance around another go at romance. Season Six Series, Story No. 7
1. Chapter 1

**Rhapsody Redux**

**an intermezzo quartenary**

_**in·ter·mez·zo n**_

a short piece of music that is performed between longer movements of an extended musical composition

_**qua·ter·nar·y adj**_

consisting of four parts, or occurring in sets of four

**The Rescue (1)**

_My friend  
It's a song  
I can't tell you where it's going  
Where it's been  
When I turn around  
It's here in my heart  
And on my lips again  
Can I tell you?  
Can I touch you?  
Can you hear me?_

First stanza from **My Friend** by Annie Palmer

_Pride can stand a thousand trials  
The strong will never fall  
But watching stars without you  
My soul cried_

_Lavender pajamas._

Joey kissed him.

He caught her by surprise earlier that evening, touching his lips to hers, his chin made bare by an impromptu shaving session, hearts laid barer still, friendly intimacy uncovering something more. Something withstanding time and denial, escape and flight. Yet alone together that night, lying on two side-by-side sleeping bags, trapped inside a giant Super K-Mart, he told her she was right. There were a million reasons why she and he didn't work.

Pacey bought her lavender pajamas.

She countered him, told him there was one thing in the pro column. _What's that?_ he asked.

Those lavender pajamas scattered blue and purple stars all over her body.

She slid over to him. He fell back, giving her room, keeping platonic space between them. She leaned in and pressed her lips to his, seeking re-discovery.

Lost herself in him.

He rolled forward, deepened the kiss, gliding his leg onto her thigh. His hand alighted at the small of her back, pulled her close.

Found all over again.

First kiss after so many various ones in-between. Touch, once familiar and sure, now tentative, exploring. Rhythm of kisses flared into tempo once again.

Fine cotton, those pajamas, downy-soft against her skin.

_I miss you_, she said after.

_I miss you too_, he whispered in return.

His lips grazed her forehead. Her pinky captured his finger, hooked and held. Head tucked into neck.

Lavender pajamas cuddled into solid arms, fell asleep, content.

XXXXX

_Lavender pajamas. His wallet._

She kissed him.

A cold, dark winter's night, the crackling fire cast flickering orange, melting away shadows around the room, glowing them warm. She lay beneath him, nude and vulnerable, yet sultry and yearning. He hovered above her, naked and unsure, nevertheless sweet and smiling.

But before that, they bickered. Over something in his wallet. About one specific item, not any of the other things.

Not the laminated Capeside High School ID card, the one where he was newly-shorn, hair standing barely one-inch outward from his skull, mouth stretched wide into a cocky grin, navy-blue block letters stamping "SENIOR" below.

(_I wanna throw the wrapper away,_ she said, turning quickly to face him when he started to protest with a nervous laugh, _If this is about what I was—_ and she stopped him.)

That morning six months before, during the first week of school, she stood just beyond the photographer's shoulder and some boy passing by sing-songed, "Witter and Potter sitting in a tree, F-U-C-K-I-N-G" and she blushed heat-red and that grin spread onto his face before he could stop it. The camera snapped it into posterity and they fought all the way to their classes after, he slow-footing it to English and she swift-scurrying to History. They made up at lunchtime, behind the bleachers on the football field. Contrite, he apologized with a sheepish smile then stricken eyes when she started crying. He held her, whispering, "I'm sorry, I'm sorry" over and over again while she dampened his shirt with humiliated tears and wetness from his own eyes smeared into her hair.

Not the "emergency credit card" branded VISA from his brother Doug, jointly managed with his sister Gretchen, that bore the soul-searing expression of a baby harp seal with it's large dark liquid eyes and sleek soft white fur against arctic snow and a turquoise sky.

(_This is about how you carried my bag off the bus yesterday,_ she began, stepping closer to him.)

He used the card to buy a formal jacket, slacks and dress shirt, escorting her to an elegant dinner in December, that first nerve-wracked foray into the glittering world of Worthington College. Handsome and proud, he stuck by her side, his hand a comfort at her waist, at the small of her back. He dubbed her "Audrey Hepburn" to ease her flutters then charmed a circle of administrators at their table. Other girls threw yearning glances their way. But she was prickly, a bundle of kinetic anxiety, immersed within her own insecurities. She cried when she thought she failed; cried even more when she realized she pushed him away even as he drew folks closer to her. They exchanged forgiveness and he carried her coat, then held it out for her to slip into, ever the gentleman. Later, next to a twinkling Christmas tree at the Leery holiday party, he slid his arms around from behind, lay his lips against her ear, murmuring, "Brat" in a naughty, sexy tone and she smiled, blushing, and snuggled back against him. Dawson captured that moment with his ever-present camera, fortuitous, creating a favorite portrait. It still graced her room at the B & B. It always would.

Not the movie ticket stubs for X-MEN at the new and improved Rialto Multi-Cineplex on the big IMAX screen with "Love, Number Four" printed in neat block letters on the backs.

(_This is about how... When we go to the movies and you go and you buy us popcorn you always make sure you bring back a napkin so I don't wipe all the grease on my jeans,_ she continued, leisurely unbuttoning his flannel shirt.)

"Number Four," he called her after Jen's Un-Birthday Party, teasing with a tender light in his crystal-blue eyes. She'd roll her eyes but her heart would smile. Her academic status became a constant source of jokes between them, relaxing her, mollifying him who worked hard for every miniscule decimal point inching upward in his GPA. On his nineteenth birthday, they suffered through twin disappointments. She mistakenly conspired a disastrous family dinner; he shouldered rejection from his one decent shot at college. Yet together, they struggled toward a celebration in fireworks at the end of the night, with his family and their friends beneath a sparking sky on the Witter lawn. Then after, alone, straddling in the dark intimacy of the front seat of his family car, hands and lips and tongues, stroking, pressing, swirling. She presented him with those movie tickets the very next evening, a belated birthday present, along with a large pepperoni and olive pizza from The Cape Man's Pie, his favorite, and a bottle of Martinelli's Sparkling Apple Cider which they opened and passed between them long after the movie, while they sat entwined on a moonlit beach, keeping each other warm with some kisses and a blanket. He grinned when he saw what she wrote and kept those stubs in his wallet thereafter.

Not the twenty-dollar bill nor the six one-dollar bills nor the fifty-three cents comprised of one quarter, two dimes, one nickel, and three pennies that constituted the remainder of his cash for the weekend.

(_And this is about how just last week when we were at miniature golf you took all of the shots first so I would know the correct path,_ she went on, while he watched her, careful and silent.)

He took out one hundred dollars cash that week before, used a little over one-third of it during their conscripted double-date with Drue Valentine and rich girl Anna. They shared a spaghetti and Chicken Marsala dinner at a moderately-priced Italian restaurant and the "Couples' Special Package" at Capeside Miniature Golf World. Drue needled her about her non-sex status and afterwards, she and Pacey addressed the physical tension existing between them, the one that all of their fervent caresses and passionate kisses and _thisclose_ encounters fell far short of easing. He admitted fear and she asked him if they could be scared together. They held onto each other, anxious. Yet instead of dissolving, that fear solidified into a knot greater than them both, opened up, swallowed them whole. They bickered about that too.

But not the Massachusetts Driver's License picturing a scrawny face with a bulbous nose and a god-awful Caesar haircut that allowed them authorization to drive to hidden places so they could partake of more explicit, though constrained, learnings far away from prying or vigilant eyes.

(_You taught me how to drive,_ she whispered, taking his hand, kissing its knuckles, while wryness traced the contours of his tempting lips).

The same Driver's License he left at the B & B that night they went the furthest to almost-all-the-way during the wee early morn hours after a violent storm at sea almost killed Pacey, almost killed Jen too. Dripping wet, soaked to the bone, he drove her home from the pier to an empty house, Bessie, Bodie and Alexander gone, stranded in Boston, roads washed out by furious rain and brutal winds, messages from would-be patrons apologizing delayed visits. They stripped down, stepped into a hot shower, and she collapsed sobbing into his arms, kissing him, fierce, clutching him to her as if her life would end if she did not. He held her tight, aching, his heart hurting because one love was drowned and this one, submerged within the sorrow of a painful almost-was. Afterwards, he dried her with soft, gentle towels, and when they kissed again, lying together in her bed, skin-to-skin, bare and battered, swept away by turbulent emotions turning to increasing passion shifting into marvelous sensation, he paused, stopped them from going further, saying, _No, not like this._ He put clothes and blankets between them (plucking two of his clean t-shirts and two pairs of his boxer shorts from the pile of unfolded clothes at the foot of her bed, and in hindsight, Joey was grateful of his tendencies to sneak his laundry in with hers), then tucked her against him to tumble with her into healing sleep. They never came that close again.

Not the tiny strip of paper proclaiming "The future lies with you," a trite message from a fortune cookie she opened up the night after Andie's goodbye dinner, the one arranged to put everything back together again before perky McPhee left for Italy.

(_And last year at prom... You knew that the bracelet I was wearing was my mom's,_ she reminded him, the corner of her lips quirking upward, his own mirroring hers, imbued with fond memory of a prior dance between them.)

They ate Chinese takeout over their books at the B & B, after a reunited afternoon spent with Jen, Jack and Dawson, catching up and exchanging funny, side-splitting anecdotes over boba tea and chocolate cupcakes at Goody's Soda Fountain on Main. While Andie pieced the broken pieces of shattered friendship back into place, Joey did her own patchwork in that hallway outside the bathroom door of Leery's Fresh Fish, telling him that though Dawson was the one who knew her best since childhood, Pacey would be the one to know her best in times to come. "It's a sign!" she announced, holding that tiny paper rectangle aloft, the very next night. He laughed, scoffing "Coincidence!" and then called her sentimental, a softy, and generally girly-girl for saying so. She protested, crumpling it into her hand. But he took it from her, leaned forward to lay a toe-curling kiss upon her, and then shoved it into his jeans pocket. Somehow, although he remembered everything, that scrap of fortune found its way into his wallet a little bit later, a pertinent reminder.

Not the limp yellow Screen Play Video Rental card, edges tattered, his signature, "Pacey J. Witter" scrawled, almost illegible, on the thin black line at the bottom, a ticket to all the evenings doing something else entirely, unrelated to cinematic edification.

(_You kissed me first, sweetheart,_ she recalled, slowly working his flannel shirt off his shoulders, letting it fall to the floor. _The second time...you counted to ten before doing it again just in case I wanted to stop you._)

They rented movies the afternoon he returned from his road trip with Gretchen a few months hence, after Joey spent most of her weekend locked in with Drue in the basement of the Capeside Yacht Club. When Drue made inappropriate advances, she blacked his eye. When he pointed out the incongruous differences between her and Pacey, she told him that part of Pacey's recklessness was that he was constantly surprising her. And part of his rashness was that he was intensely passionate. She thought those differences were important, that they made for a richer relationship. When Pacey came back, driving straight to the B & B after dropping Gretchen off, she jumped into his arms and kissed him deep and hard. Chuckling, he said he should leave more often if she was going to greet him like that on every return. Smiling, she took his hand and led him out to the edge of her dock. They sat – she between his knees, he leaning forward into her warmth – and faced out towards the creek as they filled each other in on their weekend apart, laughing, hugging, peppering each other with affectionate kisses. Later, the movies they rented went unwatched as they shared a more sensual, though still prudent, homecoming on her living room couch, in complete locked-door privacy.

Not the hard maroon Capeside Public Library card proclaiming User ID number 3789276, scratches marring the smooth plastic finish after numerous checkout swipes for books to assist a determined study warrior.

(_You bought me a wall,_ she whispered. _I didn't buy it so much as I—_ he started to say, before she interrupted him.)

He gave her a blank brick canvas, awaiting her very own painted visions, presented it to her on a blustery spring evening the year before. But he was the one who scrawled a choice on it: _Ask Me To Stay_. Almost too late, she made that decision before the summer fled away from her, taking him with it. They took flight together instead. Three months later, it was she drawing choices for him: _Pacey, a relationship isn't about a romantic three-month cruise. It's gonna be the details that define us. You know, like...the moments._ And he took a deep breath and said, _Okay. Joey...I am...really scared. Um...I think that I screwed up and I'm gonna flunk out of high school. So I need your help, um...really badly._ Then he dropped his head, bowed by the weight of his distress, and she hugged him to her, cradling him, soothing him. _That's all you needed to say, Pace,_ she told him. They consoled one another with ardent kisses and delightful touches, murmured endearments and sleepy cuddling deep into the night on the _True Love_, before he took her home, just this side of her curfew. They got that library card the very next afternoon on the following day.

Not the small photo, cut to size from a larger 3-inch by 5-inch print, of he and she laughing, settled on the bow of the _True Love_, her sitting between his bent legs, leaning back against his chest, his arms around her, her fingers enmeshed with his, all four hands resting in her lap.

(_We were alone on a boat for three months and you understood without a word why I wasn't ready. Do you have to ask me now why I am?_ she asked, raising her eyes to his, intent, melting. He cracked the tiniest of smiles, brought his hand up, lay his palm against her cheek, achingly tender.)

They started their senior year arguing about Dawson. Once docked, stranded on land after flying free on the _True Love_ for an entire magical summer, they faced down what their choices that last spring had wrought. A best friend hurt by the consequences of their decision to leave him and love each other. It blew up at The Dive-In, threw itself in their faces and she sought him out afterwards, after giving Dawson a present she hoped would be a first building block towards developing his own future that did not include her. Not in the way he always wanted her to be included, that is. He would always be her dearest friend. She stopped and started in the stick-shift truck she borrowed from Bodie as she made her way to the pier, to Pacey, to _True Love_. _I stalled seven times and six out of the seven times, do you know what I thought about?_ she asked her boyfriend, pacing before him as he pretended immersion into their hardbound, tattered copy of Hans Christian Anderson's "The Little Mermaid." _You,_ she continued on, intrepid. _It's this secret thing I do whenever I get really pissed off or confused or angry or upset or sad. I think of you, and I immediately feel good inside. I guess it's kind of like taking a good mood pill or something._ As his iciness melted and the warmth seeped back into his gaze, she said with a firmness born of deepest conviction, _My heart? That's a fixed point. Three months riding the open waters couldn't shake it, and I'll be damned if I'll let your insecurities shake it. My heart never left this boat. It's never left you. As far as I can see, it's not going to any time soon._

So in that cabin, on that winter's night, before she ran through all of these things that truly mattered, they bickered over none of those things in his wallet except for that one tiny, flat, blue, square package that within sealed a tightly rolled, thin-rubber, softly-ribbed condom.

In the end, it was about fear and childhood dreams and letting go. About insecurity and long-held ideals and a golden boy she hurt by loving elsewhere. It should not have been about that. Yet inexplicably, it was. So it was up to her to make it about something else, all things else that truly mattered, because she realized she never really loved that golden boy at all. Not the way she loved _this_ boy. Loving him was wrought with peril, full of angst, painful and frustrating and sometimes harrowing, yet it was also deep and all-encompassing and real.

_Pace. I'm gonna count to ten... And then I'm going to start kissing you. If you don't want me to..._ she whispered, her voice caressing as she slipped his white undershirt up and over, removing it from the heated skin underneath, _…then you're just gonna have to stop me._ He stood before her, patient, awaiting. As she leaned up into him, lips hovering over his, she breathed, _Ten, my love._

And she kissed him.

Fear fled as they came together, completely surrendered yet absolutely safe within the circle of that embrace. When she lay beneath and he hovered above, she looked up and they locked eyes. She yearned and he smiled, then he slid into her slow, then quick and abrupt. A brief burst of pain made her gasp as something within her resisted then gave way. He leaned down and whispered, "Shhh. It's gonna to be alright," pressing his lips to her forehead, her cheek, her mouth. And it was more than alright. It was the nicest thing she could ever imagine and the nicest joy she ever experienced in her life up to that very moment. Then it was more than nice and she had no words because it was all throbbing, overwhelming, ecstatic feeling. Moaning sounds and inside explosions and blissful shivering.

As she drifted off to sleep, his brown leather wallet lay spread-eagled on the floor, discarded. Next to it, that flat square package, ripped asunder, yawning empty. Next to him, arms wrapped around, she nestled, gentled tender, sleeping fulfilled.

XXXXX

_Heaving heart is full of pain  
Oh oh the aching  
'Cuz I I'm kissing you, ooh  
I, I'm kissing you ohh_

_  
Lavender pajamas. His wallet. Her dress._

Because she kissed him.

That's how it happened. The pain spilled over and they clutched at one more desperate soothing. Coming together, though already torn apart, just as midnight tipped into a fresh day proclaiming the end of Them. But when it first started, she agonized over a dress.

What do you wear on a date with your boyfriend that's not a date because he's no longer your boyfriend but you love him?

She bought the dress months before but had not yet worn it. When she saw it on the mannequin in the window of Jill's Boutique, she thought it was just elegant enough, just contemporary enough, just confident enough, just long enough. Vintage-inclined, champagne-colored, with thin dark maroon lines running across in diagonals. Pieces of the pattern were sewn into a figure-hugging silhouette, with tiny shoulder sleeves, material drifting down just below her knees but well above her ankles. She looked so good in that dress. When she originally bought it, she imagined the attractive picture she would make, wearing that dress, happy and relaxed on the arm of a sharply-dressed Pacey. They looked so good in that imagining.

But the week before the day she was set to wear that dress, he broke her heart into a thousand pieces on a dance floor, on a boat, in front of everybody they knew and all those they did not know as well. He threw vile accusations at her, self-imploded into a ball of anger, told her she made him feel like nothing. She died as he killed what they had together. Finding her voice, she told him to go to hell and went outside above-deck to cry in Dawson's arms. Yet she wanted to be in Pacey's arms instead and she hated that. She hated _him_.

He hated himself more.

She invited him to that last Worthington event, a final attempt to see if perhaps they were wrong, that the signs would point them right again. She wondered if she should wear the dress she bought, though that dreamy vision of them two had turned quickly to a nightmare of one minus one. As she pored over her closet, undecided, anxious, she also ran through regrets. Of all the things she never told him.

That she lied to Dawson about them sleeping together (though finally told him the truth much, much later). That she briefly thought she was perhaps pregnant with Pacey's child (but was not). That she was afraid he would leave her (and then he did). That she could never love anyone like she loved him, not even Dawson (never Dawson). That she loved him and always would (still).

Nervousness spurred her on so that she was sitting on the porch, dressed and waiting when he arrived. She decided to wear that dress. Standing as he approached, her heart fluttered at the sight of his handsome and somber figure, then plunged painfully when he leaned up to kiss her lips in greeting, out of habit, then checked himself, swerving off to the side into an awkward silence. Her gut clenched hard and she stepped away, saying, "We should get going," walking ahead of him to the car. Yet she felt his presence heavy and strained next to her, so near but the farthest away he had ever been.

The signs were mixed and eventually, brutal. They were not to be, after all. But when he dropped her off at the B & B, poised on a final leave-taking, she could not let him go. Not yet. She asked if she could go home with him. Just to sleep. Shattered resignation turned into frail empathy in his eyes as he agreed, enfolding her into a mournful embrace. She went to her room, grabbed jeans, her jacket, a sweater, some socks and sneakers. Shoving them into a small navy duffel bag, she returned to a subdued Pacey, awaiting her in the foyer. She took his offered hand, and he pulled her behind him as they went back out into that night, into his car, driving to an empty, Gretchen-less house. She shed her dress, donned one of his t-shirts and boxer shorts, perhaps for the last time, and slid into his bed. He took her into his arms, held her close, spooning warmth around her.

Just before midnight, she awoke, completely turned around in his arms. Facing him, she observed how his ridiculously long lashes shuttered his eyes as he slept. The evenness of his breathing in slumber, rising his chest, falling it too. The vulnerability of his expression as he slept, gentle and defenseless as a baby. She reached out her fingers to feel the softness of those lean cheeks beneath sensitive pads, the tickling of those lashes at their tips. Then, she leaned forward and kissed his lips. She could not help herself.

Awoken by her soft mouth, her exploring tongue, he mumbled sleepily, incoherent, and brought his hand up to clutch a fistful of her dark hair, returning the kiss, taking up his own position in that passionate dueling. Shifting so he was above her, he covered her, plunging into her from above – first tongues, then fingers, and finally _him_, hard and ample. She took him in, frantic to fill that inconsolable emptiness. He was frantic too.

Afterwards, they lay spent, that brief moment of fullness, of elation, fleeting then gone, rendering them still inconsolable, perhaps even moreso. He said, "That was weird" and turned over, away from her. She said, "Yeah" and lay staring up at the ceiling, forcefully squashing the sobs in her throat, keeping them from escaping into sound, into air. Then she turned onto her side, her back to him, rolled herself up into a ball, and clenched down on her pain as hard as she could until she fell asleep.

The next morning, Pacey was gone. Joey dressed into those jeans, the jacket, her sweater, some socks and sneakers, rolling that dress up into a cylinder of yesterday's visions departed, stuffing it into the small navy duffel bag. She sought him out, found him stewing over his own regrets at the end of a pier at the Marina, his eyes seeking out the ghost of _True Love_ out on the horizon. He apologized again for his shortcomings, told her about the guy he despaired he had become and said, "I hate that guy." She sat next to him, told him, "You're not that guy." They were soft with each other, tender and sad, steering resolute to a kinder and gentler resolution. She reached over, took his hand from his pocket, clasped it firm between both of hers.

They both looked out at that horizon.

XXXXX

_Lavender pajamas. His wallet. Her dress. Pair of boots._

They kissed, she thinks.

A hazy recollection perhaps, but Joey never forgets the feel of Pacey's lips brushing against hers.

When they were teenagers, in all of her youthful fervor, she thought that the feeling of being kissed could never be the same with any other boy. As she grew older, she deduced that this initial speculation was a fallacy. The rush of emotion, the shiver of pleasure, the heating of lust – it would spring to life whenever her lips touched those of a boy she found attractive, that was in turn attracted to her, instigating the spillage of endorphins and heightened nerves and sensory responses existent within every human being that had lived and loved, across generations and centuries and eras and millenniums.

She was right. But she was also wrong.

Different boys engender different emotions and so too, do their kisses. And even after all this time, Pacey's kisses were distinct. Still were, even after goodbye.

She got outrageously drunk at Pacey's party, the month after she left Eddie on the beach coast of Santa Monica, California and returned to the bayside city of Boston, Massachusetts, courtesy of a one-way first-class plane ticket paid for by a grateful and appreciative Mrs. Liddell. Before leaving, she went to the Santa Monica Place shopping mall and bought a pair of fine black leather boots at the Kenneth Cole store there. She liked those boots. They were now her favorite pair.

So Audrey was in rehab in Santa Barbara, Eddie was at the California Writers Workshop near Malibu, Dawson was doing post-production in Hollywood, Jen was frolicking with C.J., Jack was monogamizing with David, and she was drinking Pacey Alcoholic Specials, once more, alone.

So she and Pacey commiserated together, flirted innocuous, drank and danced and played party games. They were friends again, better friends than before when all that linked them was a deep affection for Dawson and an intense hatred for each other. But when Dawson was cut from the equation, passion flared hot between them, connecting them, soldering them to one another. Then that bond broke, they teetered apart, licked their wounds, separate. After that, they forged friendship instead and it was deeper, stronger, everything she needed and anything she wanted and she was so very glad. She believed it was so for him too. He did not disagree.

So at Christmas she took advantage of a Drunk Def Con 4 Pacey beneath the mistletoe and that was very much on her mind when she embarked upon Spin the Bottle, already sloshed to the four winds and uncaring of consequences. But her Pacey mackage was interrupted by a sudden crash and he was leaping over couches, yelling loud, and when she stood up to inquire what all the fuss was about, she fell into blankness and did not remember much else after that. Yet when she awoke the next morning, snuggled beneath the warm, thick blue-gray comforter on Pacey's bed, her lips tingled in that familiar way she remembered and that pair of boots were off, tossed careless at the foot of the bed while Pacey was nowhere to be found. He slept downstairs on the couch instead.

So he fed her Cheerios with black coffee and orange juice when she stumbled down the stairs, only half-coherent, and despite a few searching glances that later she felt she must have imagined, his expression was open and friendly, candid and amused. He gave her some aspirin and she borrowed some socks. She put on that favorite pair of boots and he waved jauntily as she walked out of his apartment, down the elevator, through the front entrance, around the block, and to the T station to get back to her dorm at Worthington College.

And that was that.

Until he kissed her after she shaved off his goatee and moustache, the both of them seated, facing each other, her legs straddling his thighs, his hands on her knees, underneath the glaring lights in the hardware aisle at Super K-Mart a few nights ago.

_Well... okay, so how do I skip the middle part? Like, if you could tell yourself something back then, what would it be?_ Harley asked Joey earlier that afternoon, seeking more than mere platitudes or trite aphorisms.

_I've been wondering lately why things were different. You know, why I can talk to Eddie without being scared,_ Joey replied, attempting honesty, just saying whatever came to mind, unfiltered. _And, you know, when you're sixteen years old, so many of your choices are motivated by fear. You know, like, one wrong move and the world is gonna end. And maybe that's what it is. Maybe it's just about... I don't know, taking a deep breath and... forgiving yourself for yesterday's mistakes. You know, you're gonna walk into school tomorrow, and you're gonna want to punch Patrick's face, but he might just say something that makes you change your mind. Hear it, Harley. Don't be afraid to move forward. _

_If all of this is about Eddie, why didn't you follow him across the country?_ Harley asked, insistent in clearing up her confusion.

_It's not just about him,_ Joey clarified. _It's... it's about me and...what **I'm** ready for._

_What are you ready for?_ Harley asked.

Joey lay on her bed, wondering when the tables turned, when the tutor ended up being the one tutored. When two bratty teenagers in deep lusty like, perhaps approaching some kind of love, transformed into a window to her own past, linking random points of her continuing relations with Pacey into an emergent constellation casting relevance unto now. Staring up at her dorm room ceiling, she imagined a sky filled with stars, seen from various reference points. The Northern Lights when she learned that the strangest of places was something beautiful, after all. A universe of stories shining onto the earth below when she reached out, grabbed his hand on Aunt Gwen's lawn, sealing her _yes_ with a kiss. Shimmering spectral lights cascading about them as they laughed and loved on the deck of _True Love_ out on serene seas. Speckled bursts of luminosity washing down on them conjoined, whether a first time at a ski resort or a last time in a lonely beach house. Stalwart stars decreeing their presence despite being obscured by millions of city lights reflecting up from Boston Bay. He just shrugged, blue eyes twinkling in a tanned face hovering above a cheerful red shirt and said, _What, the stars? Um...no, you can't see them very well._ Then looking straight at her, smiling, he continued, _But what the hell...I've seen them all before, right?_ She looked back at him, also smiling, and concurred, _Me, too._

So Joey picked up the phone, dialed Pacey's cell phone number, and tired of goodbyes, she said hello and told him she wanted to try.

XXXXX

_Touch me deep, pure and true  
Give to me forever  
'Cuz I, I'm kissing you, ooh  
I, I'm kissing you, ohh_

_Lavender pajamas. His wallet. Her dress. Pair of boots. Boston Bruins sweatshirt._

Then she kissed him.

It was not her intention when Pacey arrived at her door late that night, driving straight to her dorm at Worthington, all the way from Capeside.

But she was wearing that Boston Bruins sweatshirt that he let her have, the morning after the night they spent together in the Super K-Mart. Just that Boston Bruins sweatshirt and a pair of jeans, her feet bare, her hair unbound. He knocked, strode in when she bade him enter, and then she walked right into his arms. Pacey surrounded her and Joey held onto him, felt the soothing contours of his solidity, breathed in the tangy smell of L'oreal Herbal Essence Shampoo. He must have gotten it at the sale proclaimed in the circulars just last week. Gone back to the Super K-Mart and stocked up because he was that kind of guy, and Joey sighed because this was knowledge hard-won and strangely comforting. The fragrance mixed with the not unpleasant scent of hours on the road – a rumpled odor, yet infinitely dear. She slid her hand up into his hair, starting from the back of his neck, upward slow, luxuriating in its springy softness, clutching gentle. Joey sighed again into his neck, fastened her lips at the nape of it, allowed herself a tentative nip to taste him, just a little. Pacey always tasted so good.

He rumbled a low chuckle and brought his hands up, clasping her about the waist, sliding them onto the small of her back, pressing her into him further. She yielded and melded herself against him as he twined his arms around her.

"Do you think we're relapsing?" Joey whispered, aching within this tenderness.

"I prefer to think of it as a rescue," Pacey murmured, his breath feathery against her hair, into her ear.

She remembered what she said to him, just a few nights ago, lying alongside yet apart, on the floor of Super K-Mart, in the dimness of a manufactured indoor night.

_When you and I were on the boat...I used to dream that we'd be cast away somewhere. You know, your standard tropical island with the white sand beaches and giant stars overhead. We'd wear no clothes, and we'd splash in the surf all day. And then at night, the moon would be this...well, this giant thing. And it was always full._

"Yeah, okay," Joey agreed. "I like that thought too."

So they were kissing.

Practice makes perfect. Despite shared desire, they were distinct individuals, out of sync with one another. Hesitancy brought with it a slight bumping around, a few bashful chuckles. Not so good. Yet soon, they were naked, lying sprawled across her bed, entangled. He slipped inside, her hand guiding him. And then, it was great. His other hand took hers up, pressing palms, fingers entwining. He began to move, slow. She moved too, leavening a mutual pace. They transposed together into remembered rhythm. At once, it was extraordinary.

Moments collapsed onto each other on the time continuum, like their bodies collapsed into each other now, skin on skin, sweat slicking them each against the other. The closest thing to time standing still Joey could ever come close to imagining. This actual sex act was a mundane, temporal union -- limbs and sweat, mouths and saliva, fingers and touch, tongues and taste.

More resided in the emotions rolled up in one's deepest being. The eyes did it. To look into someone's eyes, without fear or wavering, was truly connecting, fathomless. Though sex was technically an intimate act, to see into one's eyes during the actual co-mingling of bodies and parts was not common. During sex with those partners since her very first one – Dawson, Eddie and Charlie, almost -- she would look into their eyes because it enhanced the sensations of every intimate insertion.

But the gazes never held all the way through. Joey always closed her eyes against the automatic pleasure of her sexual fulfillment, burying her face into a corded neck or thick, soft hair or arching her head back in ecstasy. Yet with Pacey -- her first and here, her present -- they held that connecting stare. They could not help themselves. Sometimes, they would keep the connection even while falling over the edge, individually, and oftentimes, as one. Pulling each other forward, they held one another, anchored each to the other's soul. Not just in that instant, but every instant they had ever known, exchanging a glance, a glare, a look, a stare.

Pacey's gaze plunged into hers and they locked together. So many beings were rolled up into this man above her, inside of her, surrounding her, filling her. A smart-ass little boy. An annoying pre-pubescent. A randy teenager. A cocky young man. Memories folded into each other while he was folding into her and she was folding into him. Yet a future settled there too -- a man emerging, sure of himself and his place in the world. Confident and resolute. Experienced and mature. Simple and marvelous.

Life was long yet and there was still so much to learn and experience. Joey wavered suddenly, absolute sureness warring with a shaky inexplicable dread. If this man became her world again, wouldn't she still just be exchanging one world for another's? What about a world of her _own_ making?

It was her last coherent thought, because the universe exploded, and dimly, through the haze of her deep, bodily implosions, she saw those fathomless blue orbs roll up into his head, his mouth slacking into intense sexual release. His loud groans mingled with her stifled screams as he brought his mouth down to suckle her entire being back through her tongue and lips, easing her down, passionate, and then gentle, into that shaky yet languorous aftermath. Arms entwined, fingers tangled into hair, bodies interlocked, both of them descended from that peak, sensually overwrought yet completely sated.

No fear. No regrets. No goodbyes.

"I missed you," she whispered.

He smiled.

Pacey kissed her.

_Where are you now?  
Where are you now?  
'Cuz I, oh I'm kissing you  
I, I'm kissing you, ohh_

_-- **Kissing You** by Desiree_


	2. Chapter 2

REDUX2

**Uncertain Returns (2)**

_You make my heart happy  
Stay with me awhile  
Don't leave me  
You make my heart happy  
Just for awhile  
Don't leave  
Leave me now_

Second stanza from **My Friend** by Annie Palmer

_I can't stand to fly  
I'm not that naive  
I'm just out to find  
The better part of me  
I'm more than a bird  
More than a plane  
More than some pretty face beside a train  
And it's not easy to be me_

Superman didn't have long hair.

This is what Pacey was thinking as he wended his way through traffic, a few days after he kissed Joey—after she kissed him back—in the harsh yet illuminating glow of Super-K-Mart's glaring lights. His hand automatically went to his chin, rubbed thoughtful at the bareness. His mustache and goatee were gone from his face—courtesy of a purple-starred-pajama-wrapped Joey—and now he was making his way to that barber shop on Charles Street that Jack raved about, the one called _Snippers_ tucked into the seams of the cobblestone alley patchwork of Beacon Hill. Without the bottom half of facial hair, the top half on his head just seemed unruly, the wayward lengthy locks seeming too profuse. It was all about proportion. Besides, it was the suit that made him a Master of the Universe (that's what he told himself anyway).

At the barber shop, an attractive redheaded shampoo-girl offered him salacious greeting with her two perky "pals" while he lay prostrate in the shampooing chair. Then he was passed along to a tall, black-haired, elegant-willowy man named Terence who flirted outrageous with him, simpering behind darkly-lined, black mascara lashes while flashing a broad, lip-glossed grin. Having palled around with Jack since high school and then trolled Boston bars as his convenient "pseudo-boyfriend" to save him from any too-persistent pursuits, Pacey was not at all uncomfortable with these attentions. Plus, it was instructive being on the other side of that soft-shoe dance. In fact, it raised his appreciation for the usual position of women amidst the meat-market barrage. So there was no aversion to flirtatious behavior from either member of the standard sexes. Or _genders_, as Jen was quick to point out, "because you are a gender, male or female, not a type of sex."

"Though if you _were_ a type of sex, I'd figure you for a missionary man," Jen told him, just yesterday, as they speed-walked the three scenic and historical miles of the Freedom Trail, trying to fulfill their shared drunken resolution to do "more fit and active stuff" in the new year. So what if it was several months _after_ that determined pronouncement of their well-meaning intentions?

"Missionary?" he inquired, aghast, barely swerving away from a jogging stroller-mommy bearing down on him fast like a speeding baby-bearing bullet. "But doesn't that mark me as rather common?"

"Nope," Jen responded, cheerful, weaving through a gaggle of preoccupied tourists that had wandered into her path, clucking confused noises and bearing folded paper maps spread open like flimsy shields. Tossing her voice over their heads, she said, "It marks you as a master of imagination. I imagine you have a marvelous range of tricks to make the experience not your-usual-top-down-poke."

"You imagine it a lot, Jen?" he asked, cheeky, flipping her a grin as she sidled up next to him, the two of them now free from path obstruction, striding at equal pace when he slowed his to adjust to Jen's shorter leg span.

"You were with Audrey, Pace," she finished, swinging her arms with pronounced purpose, elbow angles pistoning her forward. "And she never complained. In fact, she was rather…um…complimentary. So 'nuff said before your head gets even bigger. And I'm talking _above_ the belt."

Sitting in the barber's chair, his hair sheared soft and short, Pacey grinned, remembering that exchange as Terence pronounced, "Done!" Returning the hairdresser's over-firm goodbye handshake, he paid his fee (plus handsome tip), tossed a jaunty wave at the shampoo girl, and walked out into the street, his step brisk.

He was going to see Joey tonight.

They had talked on the phone a few times since "The K-Mart Kisses"—mostly banter, nothing out-of-the-ordinary—though the innuendoes tossed between emitted a more crackling charge. Such teasing used to be harmless, neutered by a well-maintained dis-intimacy. _Dis-intimacy._ That was Jack's term for, "you used to have sex but now, nevermore. It's like 'dis-entangling,' 'dis-engaging,' 'dis-lodging.' 'Dis-' makes it all water under the bridge and far, far away. A hump you've jumped. A hill you've climbed. A—" "I get it, Jack," Pacey interrupted, truncating yet another discourse on made-up vocabulary. Between Jack and Jen, an entire linguistic universe sprung fully-formed from their inventive, often perverse heads.

But getting back to Joey (didn't it always get back to Joey?), it had been several days since that night and though he felt no regrets, he harbored a small amount of anxiety. Pacey knew that though Joey found this time alone necessary, too much time could border on dangerous. Then again, he had his own misgivings. High school might have seen the implosion of their teen romance, but Pacey actually felt he had much more to lose now. Though his friendship with Dawson had mended somewhat since that long-ago erstwhile spring, it was Joey whom he considered his very best friend. She was his confidante, counselor, countering-intelligence, and sometime platonic-date—a pal for all occasions. Plus, she had the memory of an elephant (though how could they really _know_ that thing about the elephant? How on earth do you measure _memory_?).

Their history was a formidable obstacle to outrun, outpower, or outleap.

"You gonna be okay here by yourself?" Jack asked later that afternoon, shouldering his duffel bag and pausing in the midst of walking toward the front door. Outside, David awaited in his trusty pine-green Toyota hybrid, the vehicle that would take he and Jack to a Spring Break holiday up in the Berkshires, their first real romantic trip as an official couple. "Nice haircut, by the way."

"I'm gonna be _great_ here by myself," Pacey said, hurdling onto the couch from behind it and settling himself down for a comfortable coze with the remote control and myriad cable channels. He crossed his outstretched legs at the ankles and leaned back against the cushions. "And thanks."

"Emma picked up the last of her things yesterday and at 10 o'clock tonight, she's officially off, back to merry Ole' England," Jack told him. "And Jen went with C.J. to New York City for the week while Grams is off doing her Spring Fling with her own girlfriends. Who would've thought Grams had her own party posse, all these years later?"

"Grams is a goddess, Jack," Pacey said. "She could spin the world on her pinky if she wanted to."

"Oh, no doubt," Jack agreed. "And she does, on occasion. Anyways, I'll catch ya later, dude. Don't work too hard."

"I won't."

A few hours later, after having his fill of _Seinfeld_ and _Everybody Loves Raymond_ reruns on syndication (with a stop at ESPN _Sportscenter_ in-between), Pacey flipped through all of the channels on the cable dial, wondering when too many channels became not nearly enough. Joey was working tonight at Hell's Kitchen, just across the street. When they spoke on the phone that morning, they decided to meet up after her shift, sometime around 8pm. But after two more rounds of careless channel-surfing, Pacey gave up on the cable TV, banishing the flickering screen and tossing the remote onto the coffee table. Leaping back over the couch, he went over to the window to peer out at the entrance to Hell's Kitchen. He smiled, caught up by a sudden giddy energy. Grabbing his coat, he strode to the door, intending to head downstairs, across the street, to finally go get Joey.

But when he opened the door, Joey stood there on the threshold, fist raised to rap on the door. Her hair was pulled away from her face, gathered into a ponytail, exposing delicate features brushed with determination. She was wearing that attractive salmon-pink coat she wore everywhere. Pacey liked the way that coat looked on her. Even better, he liked the way _he_ looked on her, but he quickly shoved that tantalizing thought from his mind as soon as it emerged. Joey cleared her throat.

_Bad timing? You're on your way out._

_Uh, no,_ Pacey said, coming to a stand-still in the doorway. _It's...cosmic timing. I was on my way to see you._

_Really?_

She looked hopeful, almost shy. As if she was surprised and happy that he thought of her at all. As if he could think of anything else _but_ her. The memory of her lips moving on his made him acutely aware of her standing before him. Just right there. He could reach out and pull her into his arms if he wanted to.

_Yeah. Yeah,_ Pacey said, thinking perhaps the repetition of the word would buy him some time. Or some sense. _I was, uh, I was hoping that we could stand awkwardly in the doorway, which, uh, huh, is workin' out perfectly for me._ No such luck.

_It's not awkward, Pacey,_ Joey said. A discomfited silence belied the statement. Sighing, she suggested, _How about I come in?_

_Great idea. Come in,_ Pacey said, standing aside to let her pass. _Uh...can I get you anything? You want somethin' to drink?_

_Uh, no, I'm okay._

_You, uh, you hungry?_

_You know what would be nice?_

_Pizza? That's funny. I was actually thinkin' pizza myself._

_It would be nice if we could stop being so polite._

They faced each other, standing on opposite sides of the kitchen counter. Pacey felt flutters colliding within his abdomen, making him feel off-balance, wary. He felt like he was back in the Starlight Studios, trying to find the rhythm, struggling to get the cadence, finding his feet to flow with hers, while Ms. Pretty Penny barked orders at them.

_Ballroom dance is an ongoing process with stages that are always evolving. You can always learn new dances -- different styles. But that dynamic you create with your partner -- the fluidity you create together -- can transpose to anything and everything. Once you get it, that is. Before that, it's all practice, practice, practice. And trust. That's what will get you to flow._

They ran through the requisite maneuvers of "should we, should we not?" and then Pacey asked Joey, _What makes you think that one false move is gonna ruin our entire story?_

_History,_ she replied, prompt.

And there it is, Pacey thought, his arch-enemy for all time.

_Yes. That was then,_ he told her, agreeing. But, _Joey...I'm serious. We're older now. I mean, it's not like I'm just gonna run out the door if I don't like your choice._

A flash of pain lit her hazel eyes, glittering sorrow-green, sheening brown depths. Each of them walked away before. But they both came back, too.

_Okay,_ she said. _Well…so what are **you** afraid of?_

In the past, he might have batted away the inquiry, professed himself fine, spun good-natured, carpet-obscuring platitudes. But this was now. _That the whole possibility thing is really just a mean trick._

_I don't like this chapter. It's too negative,_ Joey said.

The woman was always trying to skip all the hard stuff in-between just to get to the good ending, Pacey thought, feeling that familiar exasperation start to stir. Yet it was an exasperation tinged with affection, touched by a soft yearning.

_I guess maybe I'm just tryin' to play out all the worst case scenarios, because I want to be sure that you and I have grown enough to be together without always having to replay our history,_ he continued. _'Cause...I'd really like to look into our future._

Joey sat down, perching onto the back of the couch and Pacey pulled a chair over to sit down in front of her.

_You want a clean slate,_ she stated, saying it out loud as she ruminated over it in her mind. Pacey could visualize the wheels turning in her head. He imagined silver-glass circles rotating, cascading thoughts all over and through her vigilant brain matter, crunching out reason and common sense and the rational, right thing.

_Well...yes and no,_ he replied, watching her face carefully. _I just don't want my prior offenses being held against me._

They volleyed reflection and reaction and resistance between them, yet soon Pacey was leaning into her, lips hovering over hers. Joey swayed toward him and he closed his eyes. Then she drew back, quick, and he found himself blinking into the sudden absence of her.

_I should go,_ she announced, standing up and away.

Pacey coughed his disappointment, masking it with resigned acceptance. _Of course,_ he said, chuckling, also standing, treading reluctant in the wake of her swift retreat.

But then Joey stopped short, turned so fast, he almost walked right into her. Pacey suppressed the urge to reach out, grasp her arms, give himself balance and possibly her too. The instant dangled.

_What about that pizza thing?_ Joey asked, throwing it out like a lifeline.

Pacey took it.

_Well, that would be an entirely different story,_ he drawled, his lips sliding into a slow, warming smile.

She wavered there—literally swaying--seeking balance to stay grounded into her own space. A long strand of dark hair loosed itself forward, slid out to hang wayward against her cheek. Pacey stayed put, kept his own center of gravity. But he stretched out his arm, automatic, and with tender fingers, smoothed that piece of hair back behind her ear, let the pads of his fingers brush light against her silky skin. Joey grinned and then it was his turn to find his own anchor, to keep himself upright amidst all of the sudden white noise surrounding them.

XXXXX

_  
Wish that I could cry  
Fall upon my knees  
Find a way to lie  
About a home I'll never see  
It may sound absurd  
Don't be naive  
Even heroes have the right to bleed  
I may be disturbed  
Won't you concede  
Even heroes have the right to dream  
And it's not easy to be me_

**11:23 a.m.**

The call came, innocuous.

Pacey was about to close yet another deal—Number Four on the day and it wasn't even lunchtime yet—when his sister Carrie called, on the calmer side of hysterical but still raw and scared, telling him their father collapsed at the breakfast table, fell heavy into his cereal, knocking orange juice and milk all over, covering their mother, spattering herself, causing Gretchen to jump up yelling, making Wendy break down and cry. Meanwhile, Doug wrapped his arms around the sagging man on the floor screaming at them to call 911 and told the old man to "Hang on, just hang on." Pacey grabbed his coat, threw a savage excuse at Rich Rinaldi, hurried out of the brokerage offices, down to the dark parking garage, and then emerged into the bright spring sunshine day of Boston, flooring the gas in his silver BMW to speed urgent toward Capeside. He made it there in just under two hours.

**1:35 p.m.**

Doug met him at the nurses' station on the 5th floor of Capeside General Hospital. In response to Pacey's inadvertent brusque greeting, Doug had no real information to impart, so he asked, more harsh than he intended, _Well, who can I find around here who **does** know what the hell they're talking about?_

_You know what, Pacey?_ Doug shot back, not in the mood for his little brother's imperious attitude. _I'd love to sit and walk you through this whole thing. In fact, that's kind of what I intended, but you don't get to blow in here and accuse me of not knowing what I'm talking about since I've been here all day._

_Hey, Doug, I'd have been here sooner if you would've called me sooner,_ Pacey retorted, unable to shake the heavy dread that had been building up in him since he left the city limits of Boston.

_I'm sorry, but we were kind of busy,_ Doug said. _I was trying to keep our mother and sisters from having a nervous breakdown while we watched our father being rushed off in an ambulance. So I'm sorry if things aren't up to snuff for the Wall Street wannabe but some of us were concentrating on more important things, like the fact dad survived._

Before Pacey could respond, Doug spun on his heel and strode away from him, disappearing around a near corner, leaving him stranded.

"Hey."

Pacey turned to find Gretchen standing there, a wan smile on her face. Dressed in navy sweats, her hair split into two sloppy braids, smudged dark circles tainted the skin beneath her eyes and she looked tired.

"Is Dad—?"

"He's fine," Gretchen said, cutting off the anxious query.

She took a few steps forward to embrace her shaking brother, squeezing comfort and reassurance around him. Pacey slumped into his sister, letting some of the wetness from his eyes finally streak down his cheeks.

"Cry baby," Gretchen teased into his ear. But her voice was soft and her tone, gentle.

"Shut up, Retch-face," Pacey replied on a slight quaver.

Gretchen just hugged her brother harder.

**3:13 p.m.**

When Gretchen left the hospital to check-in on their mother and sisters at home, Pacey sought out his older brother, bearing two Styrofoam cups of coffee in hand as a peace offering. He found him in a far waiting room, sitting alone, slumped and thoughtful. When he handed him one of the coffee cups, Doug mumbled his thanks and sat up straighter.

_Yeah. Went ahead and got him a private room,_ Pacey told him.

Doug stiffened a bit. _Hmm, good for you_, his brother said, his tone clipped. _How'd you swing that, slip him a twenty? Well, that's one way to solve it, I guess._

Pacey swallowed his automatic ire and leaned back into contrition instead. _Doug, I'm sorry. I got myself all worked up on the drive here thinking about the possibilities and...I appreciate the fact that you've been here all day. I am sorry, man. I was just a little on edge._

_You should try having breakfast with dad and see him grab his chest and fall over. I mean, have you ever seen him off-guard one single day in your life?_

_No. No. Not even close. Which is probably what's so scary about this whole thing. I mean... I spent so long pushing the old man's buttons in high school, I forgot there were real feelings left under there_

An attendant entered to flip on the television set hanging in the corner and Oprah Winfrey sprang into the room, counseling housewives on financial issues, assisted by her money matters cheerleader, Suze Orman. The brothers lapsed into preoccupied silence, both pairs of eyes glued to the television set. After Oprah had her say, the local news came on to detail Capeside's strategies for the onslaught of spring tourism already underway, announce "sunny skies ahead for the next few days," and investigate the magic of what goes into "the perfect bowl of clam chowder."

After the sports' scores and an update on the health (and wealth) of the Boston Red Sox, Pacey finally excused himself to go to the outside corridor where the pay phones were. In his rush, he left his cell phone in the car, so he pulled out his calling card, slid it into the appropriate slot, and dialed Joey's dorm room number. After a few rings the phone picked up and the answering machine greeted him: _Hey, this is Joey. Sorry I missed you. Please leave a message._

Pacey opened his mouth to leave his regards and perhaps some news, but Doug came out to him, saying, _Hey, Pace, he's awake. We can go in now._

A split second demanded he speak or remain silent on that far away machine, the one that would capture his voice for Joey to replay and rewind and reassess. It emerged looming, suddenly heavy. Pacey cast off the weight and hung up the pay phone. He made a note to himself to call Joey's cell phone later, then followed Doug to his father's hospital room. John Witter sat in his bed, overwhelmed by machinery and tubes, beeping electronics and humming equipment, swaddled by sterilized cotton sheets and a purified wool blanket. Pacey thought he looked diminished, shrunken by mortality.

The doctor strode in. _I don't mean to break things up, but you're still pretty weak, Mr. Witter. One kid at a time, ok?_

Pacey started to rise from his chair, saying, _Well, I can just wait outside until you guys are ready…_

But John Witter raised a staying hand and said, _No, Pace. I want you to stay. Come on, sit down._

For a moment, Doug looked crestfallen, but quickly enough, his expression transformed into a polite stoicism. _Ok. That's ok. You know, I've been here all day, right? So, uh...ahem._

_Thanks, Dougie,_ their father said, keeping his eyes on his younger son.

After a brief pause, Doug left the room, noticeably hurt. Pacey noted his upset, but before he could comment, his father asked, "So do you have any updates on the Sox for me?" instigating a lively conversation about baseball and sports that led into a discussion about financial health (after Pacey told him he and Doug were watching Suze Orman on Oprah Winfrey in the waiting room). From there, it was on to a pleasant debate about hockey versus soccer as the more popular global sport. It was way past twilight by the time they got to the incident that precipitated this visit to Capeside General.

**5:42 p.m.**

…_Anyway, I blame your mother, Pacey. She got herself this new cookbook: Bacon makes the world go 'round,_ his father said, laughing softly.

_Well, I guess that's not the worst concept ever heard of,_ Pacey concurred. He lounged, relaxed, in his chair.

_It is when the bacon is going on top of the apple crisp,_ John Witter continued, laughing again. _I think she's trying to kill me. Which is really funny 'cause you're the only one in the family who's got any money._

Any other time, that comment might have been construed as sarcastic, even cruel. But his father winced a bit, as if the laughter was just a tiny bit painful, and Pacey realized it was his own way of softening the scare. Was this clarity newfound or had he just obscured such insight before, his own prior immaturity blind to the fact that his father was merely human after all? It was a humbling feeling, acknowledging his dad's vulnerability. People make their own heroes, whether real or not, Pacey thought. They build them up and tear them down at will. Even he was not immune.

_You know, this stuff is serious,_ Pacey said. _I mean, if you got heart problems, Pop, you really gotta take care of that._

When his father started to apologize for taking him away from his work back in Boston, Pacey cut him off, told him some things were more important. This thing was the most important of all.

_You really would do anything for me, wouldn't you? Even after everything, you're still..._ John Witter's voice trailed off into a significant pause. When he continued, his voice was gruff. _You grew up to be one of the good guys, Pacey. I always knew you would. I should've told you that more often._

Pacey looked at his father, saw something he never saw before shining from his eyes: pride…and deep affection. _Well, maybe I just didn't always hear you._

_Yeah,_ his dad said.

Pacey's heart and throat constricted, simultaneous. Wetness threatened his eyes again, but instead of worry, it was a tardy gladness that suffused him throughout.

**6:03 p.m.**

_Ok, hold on. What is it that you actually want to talk to me about? Because, from my way of seeing things, you and I are just two brothers trying to take care of our family,_ Pacey protested.

Somehow, for whatever reason, he and Dougie were arguing again.

_No, Pacey,_ Doug insisted. _**I'm** the one taking care of the family. I'm the one who's been taking care of the family for years._

_Oh, now, Doug, don't you dare get righteous on me. You cannot lord your resentment over me because that was your choice._

_Yeah, I do happen to make choices. I know that's a foreign concept to someone who plays musical careers._

The clenching in Pacey's gut grew tighter and tighter.

_How did we get here?_ Pacey threw out, at a loss. _Am I stepping on your turf or something? Are you the only member of the family who's allowed to be caring and compassionate? What did you expect me to do, Doug? Just chomp on my cigar on the other end of the phone and cut a check for the man's funeral? I'm a member of this family._

_Yeah, conveniently,_ Doug scoffed. _That's the way it is with you lately, isn't it? You just swoop in with your fancy gifts. You just pull the wool over the whole Witter family's eyes. And then you're out. And everybody forgets._

Pacey's hard-won patience of recent hours snapped into flared irritation and frustration. _Forgets what? That I'm the family failure? Am I just never supposed to grow up? Am I not allowed to want things?_

_Oh, no, we all want things, Pacey. Believe me, we all want things. Nobody would deny you that._

_Then what? I'm just not supposed to get them? So, ultimately, this is not about our father. Which is kind of pathetic, Doug, considering the condition that that man is in right now. This is about you wanting to see my face everyday and know that you're still the good son, that you're top dog. Well, that's just sad. Dougie, I miss the daily beatings as much as you do, but I had to leave sometime._

_Pacey, don't make this a celebration of your retreat from Capeside._

_I'm not,_ Pacey countered. _Man, listen to yourself speak! I came here to see you, to see him. And you know what? He knows it, and he appreciates it. Perhaps he's even happy to know that the son he ignored for the better part of his life is not gonna hold a grudge against him until the day he dies. In a strange way, this might even be a good thing._

_Yeah, you know what? It **is** a good thing, Pacey,_ Doug bit out, not at all mollified. _Heh! It's all yours, little brother. You know what? It's all yours. Enjoy it while it lasts._

And Doug Witter walked away again, leaving his younger brother once more marooned.

**6:45 p.m.**

"Why does Doug hate me so much?" Pacey asked Gretchen, as they sprawled across the chairs in the waiting room, munching on subway sandwiches that she bought from the deli down the street.

"He doesn't hate you, Pacey. He's just…Doug," she said. "Besides, he nearly chomped my head off too when I saw him outside."

She brought dinner for all three of them, but ended up handing Doug his roast beef on rye as he exited the hospital, still annoyed. He needed a break from glaring white walls and a sterile atmosphere, so Gretchen sent him home to spend a little time with their mom and sisters. She tracked down Pacey by the nurses' station to give him his turkey and swiss on wheat and they both came into the waiting room to catch a little down time. As he tore into his sandwich, grateful for the long-overdue sustenance, she chowed down on hot pastrami on sourdough, watching a syndicated _Friends_ rerun on the television set.

"Man, I love this episode," Gretchen said, laughing at Phoebe Bouffay's antics as she responded to seeing Monica Geller and Chandler Bing going at it from Ross Geller's apartment across the way. _My eyes! My eyes!_ Phoebe exclaimed onscreen, covering them with her hands while Rachel Green made equally shocked noises next to her.

Pacey chuckled, at both the fictional characters' upset and his own sister's obvious delight in watching them. "How _you_ doin'?" he mimicked, referring to his favorite character, Joey Tribbiani.

"Actually, how _are _you doing?" Gretchen asked, turning to look at him, her gaze intent.

"Well. Let's see—I hate my boss, I'm a slave to my job, I'm still paying off expenses for the huge hole my car punched into Dawson's house last Christmas, Dad's here in the hospital, and Dougie despises me," Pacey enumerated, in-between bites of his sandwich. "I'd say it's been a banner year, so far."

"Again, Dougie does _not_ despise you," Gretchen said, crumpling up the wax paper remains of her now non-existent sandwich and three-point-shooting it into the garbage bin across the room. It bounced on its rim and fell into the can. "Score!" she proclaimed, throwing her arms up, three fingers protruding outward from both hands.

"Lucky shot," Pacey commented. He aimed his own paper ball at the bin and made a successful shot also. "All net! Now _that's_ skill!"

"Yeah, yeah, whatever. You know I always kick your ass in 3-point shootout on asphalt," Gretchen said with a dismissive wave of her hand.

"But I rule in slap shots on ice," Pacey pointed out.

"Um, hello! We're talking about basketball here. Quit switching to hockey by default. Besides, I recall Joey kicking your ass in that department once."

"When we were eight!" Pacey clarified. "At the roller rink. Totally worlds apart from _real_ hockey."

"Whatever," Gretchen shrugged. "How's Joey doing, by the way?" When Pacey stayed silent, Gretchen got more alert. "Something going on, baby bro?"

"I don't know," Pacey said, dropping his eyes from his sister's too probing gaze.

"Oh my God," she breathed. "Are you two…did something…?"

"We had an…incident, yes," Pacey admitted.

"Ex-sex?"

"Like I would tell you!"

"Like I couldn't figure it out!"

"Whatever," Pacey said. "But no—we haven't gotten that far."

"Yet," his sister added.

"Gretch, I'm not assuming that we will."

"Of course not. But you want to, right?"

"I plead the fifth on that."

"You're a _guy_, Pace. Therefore, I hold the truth to be self-evident."

"What kind of guy do you think I am?" he protested.

"The kind of guy that's still in love with Miss Josephine Potter," she stated.

Pacey rubbed at a black ink smiley on the vinyl of his seat and did not answer. Some kid had drawn a round face with two button eyes and a tongue sticking out from a curved smiling line. Or maybe it wasn't a kid. Maybe it was some old guy bored silly waiting for his medications, who borrowed a pen from a passing nurse and made his mark on this vinyl seat in a public hospital room before his own life span terminated him from the earth. Or maybe it was drawn by some teenage girl waiting for news of her mother, hoping it was good, bracing for any bad. An errant image of Joey at thirteen, pale and pig-tailed, sitting here in this waiting room, in this very chair, leaped clear and vivid to his mind. Pacey traced the curved lines, imagining Joey's thirteen-year-old fingers etching evidence of her. Proof of her, everywhere.

"I recognize the signs, you know," Gretchen continued, when Pacey remained quiet. "I'm an expert at figuring out when a guy's still in love with Joey. Been there and done that."

"Touche," Pacey said, putting out his fist for Gretchen to bump against lightly with her own. Wonder Witter Twins, activate, Pacey thought, random, thinking along the lines of those cartoon Super-friends. "But still, I hesitate to throw too much initial optimism behind this…whatever it is."

"Why not? You're a wizard of finance. You take huge risks every day for a living."

"Tangling with Joey always brings a greater level of hazard and consequence."

"Surely it's not so hard."

"It's never that easy."

"You're both older."

"But we're still young."

"Is that what scares you?"

"No," Pacey said. "What scares me is that she might be 'The One' and I might not be the same for her."

"Because of Dawson?" Gretchen asked, throwing out the dreaded Soul-mate Card.

"Not really…anymore. I'm just not sure Joey knows what she wants yet. And I'm not about to push her into any hasty decisions."

"I have a feeling it won't take too long."

"How could you know that?"

"Women's intuition," Gretchen stated, absolute in her conviction. "Just as I'm sure Doug doesn't hate you."

"Once again, Gretch-and-Sketch, I must beg to differ," Pacey said. "Dougie sure as hell bears me no great love right now."

"You know, for some reason, things got set up so that in order for Doug to feel successful, you had to _not_ be. I don't know why that is--maybe it's because you're the only two boys in this family or maybe because sometimes Dad is really just that fucked up. Though, to be honest, you ended up in the same dynamic with Dawson, so maybe it's more wide-ranging than I originally thought." Gretchen paused, distracted by this new thread of speculation, a frown wrinkling her brow.

"Okay, focus. Here. Now," Pacey said, snapping his fingers for emphasis.

Gretchen swatted at his hand and continued. "I think your recent success has turned Doug's world upside-down but not for the reasons you assume."

"And those reasons would be…?"

"That he doesn't _want_ you to be successful. That he truly wishes you ill in your life. You know, deep down, that's not true."

Pacey remained silent, absorbing her words, so Gretchen went on.

"It boils down to the simple fact that inexplicably, only one of you could be the superhero for Dad. And since Doug came first, he simply had to be. And because you came last, you didn't even try to be. Yet here you are, trying on careers for size and excelling in each and every one of them. And the things that Doug practiced at, worked at, toiled at—following in Dad's footsteps doing law enforcement and sticking around Capeside to out-provide Dad in the caretaker department—are shunted aside overnight by your one most recent leap over a very tall building."

"So what am I supposed to do about that? It's not like I have it easy."

"Like you said, you told Dad that maybe you didn't hear him while growing up. Don't turn a deaf ear toward Doug now either. He's trying to say something else, even though he's showing you something completely opposite. It's far from hate. A lot closer to it's opposite, in fact. Just listen harder, Pace."

**8:17 p.m.**

It was getting late.

Doug returned, dispatching Gretchen back to the home-front to keep their mother and sisters soothed and steady. But as she hugged their older brother welcome and goodbye, she sent Pacey a meaningful look. She paused to fix Doug with a telling glance too, but he just shrugged. She squeezed his arm before leaving. Whether it was comfort or warning, Pacey could not tell. Doug just looked weary and exhausted.

Out in the corridor, Pacey told Doug to "Go ahead, I'll meet you in there" and went back to the pay phones to call Joey. He tried her cell phone this time but still no luck. So he left a message telling her what happened with his father and that things were okay, that he would be back in Boston by tomorrow morning, that he hoped she was well. He mentioned nothing about their current holding pattern, said not a word about meeting up soon. She needed space and he respected that. He probably needed space too.

Going into his father's room one last time, he announced his leave-taking, to which his father replied, _Uh, Pacey... thanks for getting me this private room._

Pacey glanced at Doug, sitting downtrodden in his chair, head bent, awaiting the inevitable letdown, the words that would undermine his own efforts, devalue his own concern, worry, and pain. All the years past roared through his ears, telling him he wasn't good enough, he was a fuck-up, he was a loser. But also a different voice, from the same source, saying, _You grew up to be one of the good guys._

_No, that wasn't me_, he said now, shrugging off the mantle of solo-superhero because in this world, in this family, there was more than enough room for two. _Doug took care of the room._ On the periphery of his vision, he saw his brother's body jerk up in surprise, felt his gaze barreling into him. _Good seeing you, Pop. Feel better_, he added.

As Pacey turned to leave the room, he shot a quick glance at Doug. Thank you, those blue eyes much like his own said, humbled and grateful. Pacey heard the soundless acknowledgement and grinned.

XXXXX

_And up, up and away  
Away from me  
Now it's all right.  
You can all sleep sound tonight  
I'm not crazy  
Or anything  
I can't stand to fly  
I'm not that naive  
Men weren't meant to ride  
With clouds between their knees_

Personal kryptonite.

That's what Dawson Leery always meant for Pacey Witter, ever since matters of Josephine Potter's heart became important, became the most significant thing in the universe. Her love was the thing that could make you superhuman. But it was also the thing that would smite you down. Pacey didn't know when people and promises got placed so high up on pedestals. He only knew they were up too high when the plunge afterwards was so great. And Good God! The drama of it all! Back in the day, he plunged right into the thick of it, launched his heart out onto his sleeve, hurled it out to be bruised and battered at will.

Those were the days.

But on this day—this night in particular—Dawson Leery stood before him clutching firewood in his arms and wearing a smile that was beaming and benign. Pacey had stopped by to do his customary check-in with Gale Leery, the usual visit to see how she was doing, to play cheerfully with baby Lily, to ensure progress of house repairs were running smooth. He did this every time he was in Capeside, which were several over the past few months since Christmas, since that merry evening when drunken Audrey slugged a sober reality check into the front wall of the Leery house, aided by his more-powerful-than-a-locomotive BMW. He had his car back; the house had its brand-new wall. Broken things, all fixed.

So now here he stood, talking to Dawson about worlds turned upside down. The previous year, Dawson lost his father. The previous morning, Pacey harbored thoughts of perhaps losing his own.

_Which is probably what made me think of you. And...probably a lot of what brought me out here, _Pacey said, standing on that dock behind the Leery home, telling his erstwhile best friend,_ It's...I just--I wasn't ready for that, you know? It's the first time in a long time I just--I wanted to curl up and be a kid and let somebody else take care of it._

_I know what you mean_, Dawson replied, shifting the mini-logs in his grasp. _I don't know when this happened. When I became the one who made sure the house was warm enough, and you became the one who checks up on repairs._

_I do not know_, Pacey continued, _but sometimes I feel like I've been playing the part, wearing the suit for so long, that... I may have forgotten how I got there in the first place._

They talked about people calling them "sir," of facing down the ghosts of former selves in the nooks and crannies of this town they grew up in, of a recent past that felt so very far away, even though they had just barely turned the corner on it a few years hence. For the second time that day, Pacey found himself enjoying the company of someone he was usually at odds with, relaxing and reminiscing over old times, feeling connected again.

_I wanna go back. I wanna start over, do things the right way_, Dawson told him.

Pacey looked out at the night-hued creek, thought of summer days when he, Dawson and Joey would take turns running to the edge of this dock. They each started from the front porch of the Leery house, sprinting full-tilt down that sloping grassy incline, across the length of the short wooden pier, to launch their child bodies reckless into the air. Soaring for those several precious seconds was like conquering air and gravity--suspended invincibility, just for an instant--before plunging into the cold waters of the creek.

_Yeah. Yeah. I'd like the time back... but I wouldn't have it the way it was._ Pacey sighed. _I just want to pinpoint that moment in your life where everything goes wrong._

_I'm thinking it was probably puberty for me._

_I could skip that, too,_ Pacey replied, automatic. Though his second thought inserted: But I wouldn't skip loving Joey and _True Love_ and one magic summer at sea. Yet Dawson did not have any of those things. Except the loving Joey part. _But if you didn't have all the great loves of your life, you wouldn't have anything to make your movies about._

_True_, Dawson concurred. _Except now that I actually have enough distance and I can actually say something about the loves of my life, I can't afford to make movies._

It was tempting to swoop in, save the day for yet another needy soul. So Pacey threw it out there—the offer—said he might be of service toward that end. The second it left his lips and plunged out into the air, he regretted saying it, lamenting his lack of self-control when it came to "fixing" things. Business between friends was such a cardinal no-no. But Dawson resisted, wary and a little bemused. For once, Pacey was glad of Dawson's tendency to just wait-and-see. That passivity saved them both from taking a path best not taken. And Lord knows they had done enough wrong-headed traveling already.

_Listen, Pace. I just made some coffee. Do you wanna come in and sit down for a little while? It's been a long day_. Dawson said, shivering a little in the cooling night air.

Pacey glanced up toward the house. For a second, he saw the dim outline of one boy standing at the top of those porch steps, and another boy and a girl holding hands before him, weathering angry judgment, seeking solace in one another. The shadow vision lingered for a moment, before sweeping itself away, up into the dark night, dissipating. _Yeah. Yeah, I'd love that, man._

The two Capeside boys turned away from the chilly dock, walking together back up the sloping lawn and into the warmth of the Leery home.

It was just this side of midnight when Pacey finally said his good nights. Sliding in behind the wheel of his BMW, he intended to speed a fast journey back to Boston, back to his apartment, back to his welcome soft bed for a good night's sleep. Once on the expressway, he flipped open his cell phone, checking his voicemail messages.

_Hi, it's me. So, I thought that I would have an answer when I picked up the phone, but I didn't. And then I thought I would think of something as I was talking, but--no such luck. Um...Pace...I think the problem is trying to figure this out alone. I--I think that maybe we should...do it together, you know? And...you know how they say if you could do it all over again, what would you change? Well...I'd probably change a lot of things...but I'm also really lucky that I have the chance. And...I guess what I'm saying is that I'm not gonna look at you and think of everything that happened. I'm...I'm gonna look at you and think of everything that **could**. Call me. Bye._

Pacey clicked shut his cell phone and pressed his foot down another half-inch onto the accelerator.

XXXXX

_I'm only a man in a silly red sheet  
Digging for kryptonite on this one way street  
Only a man in a funny red sheet  
Looking for special things inside of me  
Inside of me  
Inside of me  
Inside of me  
Inside of me_

Was Superman ever afraid of Lois Lane?

It was a silly notion, but one that persisted, as Pacey stood outside the dorms on the Worthington campus, vacillating, wondering if the light illuminating Joey's window meant that she was still up, debating if he should wait until the morning to revisit this terrain. He was tired, it had been an extremely long day, and perhaps being a man of action in response to her words could be imprudent. She only left that message barely two hours prior and it was the wee small hours of the morning. She was not expecting him.

But a cheerful group of dorm residents—returning from a late night of studying or an impromptu party, he didn't know which but they seemed rather jolly—greeted him, exhorting entrance into the building along with them. So Pacey figured it was a sign. For a practical man, he sure put a lot of stock in fortuitous coincidence.

At her door, he knocked soft, announcing his arrival in a low but carrying tone. "Jo? It's me."

He heard a rustling on the other side of the door, two feet hitting the ground, probably coming to a stand. A short silence ensued after and Pacey envisioned her poised there, perhaps wearing those purple pajamas from last week, frozen and dithering. He always was one to push their amorous negotiations past protracted and straight into expeditious. A prior apparition of Joey standing in front of a brick wall rose in his mind. She was holding a brown paper bag, encasing a half-gallon carton of milk, and he stood before her in the moonlight, dark red paint smearing his brow and his fingers. The wall behind them proclaimed large-lettered words from an act he instigated: _Ask Me To Stay_. She dithered then, too.

But now, Joey's voice called out, "Come in," so he turned the doorknob and stepped into the room.

And then she was in his arms, enfolding him, her face burrowing into his neck, sighing. She wasn't in her pajamas. But she was wearing his Boston Bruins sweatshirt and her hair smelled like raspberry-vanilla and she was so very soft and incredibly warm. No words of welcome, just a physical embrace that said everything he needed to know. Everything he _wanted_ to know. He brought his hands up to span around her waist, pulling her further into him. Closing his eyes, he breathed her in, holding her close.

"Do you think we're relapsing?" Joey whispered, pressing her cheek against his.

"I prefer to think of it as a rescue," Pacey murmured, his lips at her ear.

She paused, thinking, then said, "Yeah, okay. I like that thought too."

He nuzzled the sensitive, soft skin, just below her ear. "You make my knees weak, Potter."

Pacey felt her body dip as if gravity itself yanked her downward. She wrapped her arms around his head, clinging for balance and he pulled her into his warm body–growing hot--covering her mouth with his, slipping his tongue into her mouth, dueling with hers to seal his return with a kiss. She tangled all ten fingers into his soft hair, while he twined his two arms around her waist, lifting her. She made a soft sound—a tiny almost-hiccup—and he smiled against her lips because he remembered that about her, and the memory made this moment feel both old and new at once.

Then he stumbled on her sneakers, tossed negligent there, on the path from door to bed. It loosened his grip just enough…and he dropped her. She hit the ground on both feet, but wavered, teetered, fell into her desk right by the bed.

"Shit," Pacey said, reaching out to grab her forearm. "I'm sorry."

Joey laughed, arighting herself, and they stood face-to-face, flush against each other, pushed into the corner between her bed and the desk. She brought her hands up, clutched two fistfuls of his dress shirt and tucked herself into him. He grinned and lowered his head to kiss her again. Over-anticipating, Joey angled her head the wrong way and they bumped noses, then foreheads.

"This is…weird."

"Like, weird as in 'stop'?"

"No, like weird as in, 'different'. And no," she murmured, leaning up, fingers sliding along his collar, "Don't stop."

They got the angles right this time and exchanged another passionate kiss. Caught up, Joey lost her bearings and fell back against the desk again. Books and pens and knick-knacks went flying. Pacey caught her up against him and chuckled into the nape of her neck.

"Maybe we should…" and he gestured toward her bed with an incline of his head.

"Yeah, maybe we should," she agreed, nodding, wryness in her tone.

Joey turned and got onto the bed, scooting up toward the headboard. Pacey joined her, maneuvering alongside before shifting atop onto her body, his arms perched on bent elbows on either side of her. Lovers once already, such instant intimacy was not sudden nor unwelcome, though Pacey expected nothing beyond impassioned kisses and roving hands, bringing both of them pleasured re-connection. But then Joey lifted her legs up and around him, her thighs embracing his hips warm, cradling his hardening erection flush against her damp, heated core, pressing hard against him. He closed his eyes, completely titillated by that upside-down saddling, and when he opened them again, he looked down at her, bemused.

"What?" she asked, the whisper tinged with edgy self-awareness.

"Nothing," he replied with a small smile. "Is this okay?"

When she nodded, Pacey cupped her breast, molding that soft fullness into his entire palm, squeezing through the fleece-cotton of the sweatshirt she still wore. Wanting to feel her without impediment, Pacey pulled the sweatshirt up, raising her bra so it was a tangled rope of cream lace arching a bridge over her exposed mounds. He stared, intent and lustful, bringing a red flush to Joey's throat. It pooled upwards to her cheeks. Pacey let out a throaty chuckle, as Joey became sixteen again and he just seventeen. He swore he could even feel the stirring of long-lost sea breezes and smell the faint traces of salty ocean brine, a past time embedding itself into the present as he re-discovered Them.

His large hand cupped a plump mound and then his lean fingers rolled her nipple, pulling and pinching, gentle. She let out a sultry exhale of breath and clutched him hard around the shoulders. A trace of a smile yanked at his lips and then he bent his head to kiss both breasts in turn before closing over one nipple for a sensual suckling. She almost lurched off the bed when his hot mouth took her in, his tongue swirling, his teeth nibbling. Joey's eyes glazed over and she let out a little moan. Pacey groaned, kneading her other breast before he switched over to give it equal attention. And then, his hand was moving downward, slipping between her legs, firm fingers rubbing her, deft, over her jeans.

"Oh my God, Pacey," Joey gasped, "I'm so wet."

"I know." His voice was low and rumbling, muffled around her nipple.

"Take them off. Please. I need them off," she said, shoving her fingers down between them to undo the button of her jeans, yanking her zipper down, frantic.

"Are you sure?" Pacey asked, trying to insert one more note of reason into their escalating mutual arousal. He wanted Joey so bad, but not at the expense of rushing to a foregone sexual conclusion. It was never just about sex with Joey. Not for him and never for her.

She grabbed his head, pulling him down for a kiss so deep and thorough, Pacey thought he would explode.

"Pacey, I want this," Joey said after, her face showing signs that she was already half-shattered (in the very best way possible). "I want _you_."

So Pacey sat up to help her slide off her jeans.

"Thong underwear, huh? That's new," he commented, amused.

"Shut up," Joey said, taking his face between her hands and sitting up to kiss him again, replicating that prior kiss to both of their satisfaction. _Great_ satisfaction. "You need to be naked, Pace. Now," she added, once her lips were free again.

"Um…okay," he agreed.

Unbuttoning his dress shirt, fast, he tossed it to the floor. Joey yanked the sweatshirt off and discarded her bra. Pacey's undershirt soon followed, practically torn off. She arched her brow and he tugged off his shoes and socks, throwing those to the floor as well. Then, his slacks and boxers. Finally, her thong underwear.

Naked, they paused to take in the changes young adulthood had wrought. Years ago, they had discovered and explored each other in the first flush of youth. Since then, Joey had become more willowy, slender, the baby fat disappeared from long campus runs and too much stress over tests and grades and financial worries. She was too thin, in Pacey's opinion, yet the consistent runs had brought muscle and tone to her limbs. She exuded a wiry fitness. And the time in between--other lovers existing there too--had ratcheted up her natural sensuality. Her breasts were still full, the rose nipples perky, her hips curvy, thighs sleek, and those legs--Lord! Those legs still went on into eternity. Her eyes spilled out smoky confidence.

While Joey looked at him, remaining quiet, Pacey wondered if she was thinking about how much older he looked than the boy she first knew, the one who initiated her into womanhood as a teenager. He was lankier then, though sinewy and strong. He was broader now, more solid, and he had a little bit of hair on his chest as opposed to the smooth expanse of bare skin way back then. When Joey placed her hand in the center of his chest and brushed her palm over those hairs, Pacey quirked a smile down at her, feeling a sense of self-satisfied pride. He was still attuned to her thoughts even though he was no mind-reader. They had always shared a heightened sensitivity with each other. Not psychic, surely—sexual psychics, what a concept!—but extra-sensory. He couldn't explain it.

Joey shivered, her entire body and all of her senses seeming to respond to him, to his slightest touch, to every flit of expression. This, too, made him proud that he could still affect her so. But then again, she had a profound effect on him as well. Then, he was guiding her back down, his hand sliding below to cup her between her legs and his fingers were slipping in to fill her, his thumb circling her most sensitive spot in the most sensual of ways. His mouth dropped down to lave her nipple again and Joey threw her head back, moaning, threading the fingers of both hands into Pacey's hair, clutching snatches of that soft furring. She wrapped her legs around his and ground against his palm. Pacey groaned, the sound muffled against her breast, and he thrust his fingers harder into her sleek, wet, dripping heat.

"God, Pacey! I need you inside me _right now_."

"Shit. Do you have a condom, Jo?"

There was a time when Pacey carried two or three condoms with him in his wallet, certainly during his Caribbean travels and definitely when he arrived back onshore in Boston. Even when he was with Audrey because their appetites were voracious and not restricted to private places for intercourse. But since that break-up, he no longer kept himself well-stocked. His insane work schedule made him a slave to the firm and his social life was confined to professional networking and maybe a pick-up basketball game with Jack every once-in-awhile. His last condom, he opened with that prostitute in New Orleans, but it remained unused and then discarded. Since then, he found himself harboring an aversion to "quick fix" sex, found himself advocating abstinence by default. So he was completely ill-equipped. But Joey was never one to be caught unprepared.

"Um…yeah…" she said, pushing him off to stretch toward her desk by the bed.

She jerked out the top drawer and grabbed a condom, one from several. Sitting up quick, she tore the packet open. Pacey shoved away his sudden thoughts of _why_ she would have condoms at the ready, right there next to her bed, and for _whom_. He sat back on his heels and Joey reached down to take his hard cock into her hands. Skillfully unrolling the condom onto it, she made sure to pinch a tiny pouch onto the end of it, as the instructions always stated. Joey was at all times responsible like that.

And then, she was lying back again, sliding her legs against his thighs, opening wide, her hand guiding him in until he was completely and fully enclosed by her.

"Good fuckin' God," Pacey mumbled, closing his eyes on the wave of almost excruciating desire he felt raging through him when he felt her clutch all around him. Nothing ever felt as amazing as Joey. It was a sad fact, though right now, it was the most incredible certainty ever.

"God, Pacey," Joey echoed on a moan. "You feel so good inside of me. I love your cock."

Pacey let out a strangled laugh. _That_ was new too. Did she learn to be freer about talking dirty with Eddie? Charlie, maybe? But she did not go all the way with him, did she? Surely not _Dawson_? Pacey shook his head again. This did not bode well that he knew about every single partner she had been with. And was imagining her with each one of them right now. Not good. He could feel his erection react, just a smidgen.

"Pace? What's wrong?"

Shit. Of course she would _feel_ that.

"Um…nothing." Then he slipped out of her completely. Fuck.

"Was that too…forward of me?" Joey asked, perching up on her elbows to look into his eyes, concerned.

What the hell happened to _I never talk about sex with anyone_? Apparently talking _about_ sex _with_ someone was totally different from talking sex _to_ someone.

"No, not at all," Pacey reassured her, kissing her on the tip of her nose. "My mind just kinda went places I didn't want them to go for a minute. A really long minute."

Joey tilted her head, puzzled, and then a slow grin broke out on her face. She wrapped her arms around his neck and brought him to her for a chuckle-tinged kiss.

"Who would've thought you had such a mouth on you," Pacey teased against her lips, soothed by her amusement.

"Why just think on it," Joey inquired, "when we can act instead?"

Before he could even speculate as to what she was about, Joey laughed and pushed him over so he was on his back. She moved fast down his body until her face was poised _right there_, hovering, a tantalizing smirk cracking her lips outward. She effectively rolled off the condom and fisted him, pumping a few times. Holy shit! Pacey thought, Miss Josephine Potter was all grown up! And then, her tongue flicked out to lick him once over before taking him into her mouth for a most pleasurable and marvelous resurrection of his prior state of readiness. Not too long after, he urged her onto her back and came over her.

"Just for a little bit?" Pacey asked, wanting to feel her surrounding him without any barriers. She nodded, also keen to embrace him unhindered. He thrust into her, hard, then rotated his hips, circling inward, pushing further.

"Oh…my…God," Joey breathed on a pleasured cry.

Pacey let himself throb there for a moment. He thrust slowly a few more times, but when he felt Joey start tightening inside and around him, he pulled out and threw himself at the bedside drawer to grab another condom. Quickly, he opened the package and efficiently rolled its contents onto his waiting cock, while Joey moaned softly next to him, her fingers clutching fists amongst the sheets, her body shivering crazy yearning. In a flash, he was inside her again, thrusting steadily, pounding hard.

She wrapped her arms around his neck, her hands around his head, and slammed herself upwards, rocking fierce. Then his eyes locked into hers. Her gaze grew wide, even as her pupils contracted, becoming dark. Pacey saw in those depths lust and desire mingled with aching tenderness, mirroring his own. Joey's gasps and cries and steady moans became more fervent, increasing in number and volume. His own load groans and pleas mingled with that welcome noise.

They came together, pulling strong, shattered as one.

Leaning down, Pacey kissed Joey back to her senses, bringing him back to his own as well.

"I missed you," Joey whispered, bringing a hand down to soothe his cheek with her soft palm.

I love you, Pacey thought, smiling down into her flushed, damp face.

He bent to kiss her again, imparting that sentiment with action instead of words.

_I'm only a man  
In a funny red sheet  
Only a man  
Looking for a dream  
I'm only a man  
In a funny red sheet  
It's not easy  
No, it's not easy to be  
Me_

_--**Superman (It's Not Easy)** by Five for Fighting _


	3. Chapter 3

**An Old-Fashioned Date (3)**

_My friend__  
__I am here__  
__Standing trembling__  
__With my heart in hand__  
__Don't make me say it__  
__Please just open up__  
__And quickly take me in__  
__Don't make me tell you__  
__Don't make me reach for you__  
__Can't you see me?_

Third stanza from **My Friend** by Annie Palmer

XXXXX

_I will meet you__  
__In some place__  
__Where the light lends itself__  
__To soft repose__  
__I will let you undress me__  
__But I warn you__  
__I have thorns__  
__Like any rose _

"We're going backwards."

"What do you mean, Jo?"

"We had sex already."

"Well, technically, we're going in reverse. We waited nine months the last time. We're getting to the good stuff sooner this time. Age definitely brings wisdom."

"I'm serious, Pacey. Reverse is backwards. I want to go _forwards_."

"Backwards, forwards, as long as we're in motion, right?"

"You slipped some subtext in there, I'm certain, but I'm going to ignore it. Quit laughing at me!"

"Jo—the first time around, we argued over sex we were _not_ having and now here we are, arguing over sex we already _had_."

"It's not that…I mean, I'm glad we did—I wanted to."

"Yes, you most certainly did."

"True to form. Still an ass the morning after."

"Okay, look—I'm sorry. Strike that last remark. Hang up the phone."

"Why?"

"Just do it."

Click. Rrrrring! Rrrrring! Rrrrring!

"Hello?"

"Um…hi. May I speak to Miss Josephine Potter, please?"

"Pacey-- "

"I'm sorry…do we know each other?"

Pause, then--

"This is Josephine Potter."

"Hi, I'm Pacey Witter. We met the other day? At the Super K-Mart? In the shaving cream aisle?"

"Yes, I remember."

"Well, I was really surprised to find that you slipped me your number with those razors you handed me–very smooth of you–so I apologize for taking a few days to get back to you. But I was wondering, would you be so kind as to come out with me?"

"You mean, like, on a date?"

"Yep. An old-fashioned date. We get dressed up nice, I pick you up at your door, we go have a lovely time at an expensive restaurant, I say, 'Please', you say, 'Thank you"…the whole nine yards."

"Is that _really_ how you ask a girl out on a date, Pacey?"

Brief silence.

"Do over….Ahem. Hello, Miss Potter. Would you be so kind as to consider allowing me the pleasure of your company this evening around seven of the clock? I would be ever so delighted."

"Well, I suppose since I _did_ give you my number I _ought_ to let you wine and dine me at least once before I write you off."

"Believe me, once is all I'll need.

"On the other hand—"

"But surely, I jest. I am deeply honored that you have accepted my invitation. Truly gratified in light of such humble generosity. However, I should warn you, Josephine…"

"What?"

"I don't put out on the first date."

XXXXX

Skirt or slacks? Jeans and a fancy blouse? An elegant dress? It was already 6:30 p.m. and here Joey was, standing in front of her dorm closet, her blow-dried hair tied back loose into a tattered scrunchy, wearing only a dark blue towel and fuzzy pink bathroom slippers, completely undecided. Even when they were in high school, though Pacey could sometimes be lazy, he was never late. So he would be here very, very soon.

_You're being silly_, Joey admonished herself. _It's only Pacey._ She pulled out a sleeveless vanilla-amber silk tunic from amidst the crush of clothes. Empire-waisted, but form-fitting. Elegant, yet sensual. Dressed-up, though not too formal. Black slacks next and then a pair of trendy but comfortable black shoes—not quite high heels but not exactly casual oxfords. It was a good balance. And that's what Joey wanted.

A good balance.

She hadn't thought to ask Pacey what _he_ was wearing. But then again, on a _real_ first date, one wouldn't ask the askee such a thing anyway. She could go naked, which would please him to no end, Joey thought, smirking. But naked was not an option. Not if they were going to slow things down. Do this right. Take their time.

Though Pacey sure looked damned good, naked.

Joey did not suppress the giddy grin that took over her face. But then _Forwards_, she chastised herself, tossing her selected ensemble onto the bed. She walked over to her desk. Pulling out the top drawer, she picked out her small velvet bag of tiny treasures. Dipping her fingers into it, she brought out a delicately-wrought crystal faux-diamond hair clip, fashioned into the shape of an art deco star flower. It was one-of-a-kind.

Jack took her shopping at a vintage store on Beacon Street in Brookline when she first got back--Eddie- and Audrey-less--from California. It was his attempt to cheer her up. When she saw that pin winking at her from its nest on a blue velvet bed, glowing there in the murky sunlight beneath the glass counter casing, she knew she had to have it. _You should definitely buy it. You deserve it_, Jack pronounced as Joey asked the wizened old lady owner with the sweet face if she could have a closer look at it. After slipping it into her hair, just over her right ear, Jack nodded and said, _Think of it as a good luck charm to usher in a brighter future. Something old for something new._

Twenty minutes later, her hair brushed to glossy and shining, her wardrobe arranged to great satisfaction, Joey stood before her closet mirror and pinned that one-of-a-kind vintage star into her hair. Then she smiled.

She was ready.

XXXXX

Pacey strode through the hallways of Joey's dormitory building at Worthington trying to shake off a weird sense of deja vu. He had walked down these corridors many times. Gone up to that dorm room and picked up a girl for a romantic night out on the town. But it used to be a different girl. And now it was Joey. Again.

On the morning after their reunion, he emerged from sleep into Joey wrapped around him, all encircling limbs and sultry softness. Yet when his eyes strayed to the empty bed across the way, guilt flashed, sudden. Several times over the past year, he awoke on the other side of that room, blonde hair spilling across his bare chest, a clasping arm anchoring him, not-so-long but still delicious legs entangled with his. And it was Joey's empty bed—and on extremely rare occasions, Joey herself as a swaddled bump of blankets—that his eyes would involuntarily encounter. Twinges of guilt would hit him then as well.

It was oddly unsettling to be intimate in a room with one girl while another one he knew just as intimately—during a recent past—slept across the way. And now he was intimate with that prior girl once more. Shit—this was more than unsettling. It was downright incestuous. Sick, if you _really_ thought about it. Of course, if he was the type to kiss-and-tell and said any of this out loud, to any non-Capeside guy of his acquaintance, the response would most likely be "Dude! You did _both_ hottie roommates? Score!"

But certain _other_ reactions would be less congratulatory. Joey gave him and Audrey her blessing last year, but he very much doubted that Audrey would be so magnanimous in return. As for the others in their Capeside circle, Pacey preferred not to think that far ahead. Thinking about others' opinions pretty much sabotaged them the first time around. At present, everyone was away from this whatever-it-was between him and Joey. Dawson was a moot point. They were on their own. No soul-mates nor significant others to complicate matters.

A sudden inkling to call Andie hit him, inexplicable. Andie was the first to make him nervous, get him to consider the grand gestures, focus on romancing and impressing and caring for a girl. It was a harebrained notion, of course. Why the hell would Andie want to field a call from her ex-boyfriend, about his anxiety before a date with his ex-girlfriend, who was her successor in the dating department? Pacey batted away the ridiculous impulse. She would probably tell him, "Get a hold of yourself, _be_ yourself, and let me get back to my biology studies now, please?"

As he neared Joey's door, Pacey slowed at the large window in the hallway, pausing to check his reflection in the glass. Too bad neither Jack nor Jen were at hand to assist him with his wardrobe for this evening. But then again, he probably wouldn't have told them about it if they were. Too many cooks…and he was a _chef_, dammit! So earlier, he flipped through several of the sophisticated men's magazines that Jack kept thrown in amongst all of his own sports publications. After perusing the most put-together, casual yet urbane looks, he went to his closet to rustle up his get-up for the night. Midnight blue jeans that were almost black, so dark they looked like slacks. Black leather shoes. Deep gray pullover sweater—soft but not snug—over a fine white cotton under-shirt. Black leather jacket as the finishing touch.

Pulling down on the bottom edges of his jacket, Pacey fixed the line of its fit across his broad shoulders. Then he ran a hand through his shorn hair, smoothing it down. Déjà vu smacked him again when he recalled that this window loomed over the seat that he and Joey sat upon that late, late night—almost morning—last Fall, when they talked of life and Jack Kerouac and growing up. It seemed like an entire era ago, even though it was in actuality, just a few months. Taking a deep calming breath, Pacey took the final few steps to Joey's door. Then he knocked, firm and resounding.

The door swung open. Joey stood in the doorway. Graceful, fresh…gorgeous. Gold-white silk draped her slim torso, subtly enhancing womanly swells, hugging slender curves. Black slacks, tailored well, close-fitting where appropriate. Shiny black shoes, fashionable yet comfortable. A twinkling crystal star hovering over her right ear. She smelled like tropical flowers—not clean and fruity as usual—but more sensual, seductive. _She's broken out the special going out perfume,_ Pacey surmised, breaking into a grin. Joey looked him up and down and when her expression turned quizzical, his grin wavered.

"What?" Pacey asked, slightly defensive.

"Nothing. I just…"

His clothes fit him to perfection—a far cry from Hawaiian shirts, combat pants and flip-flops. Wow, were those jeans Diesel? Shopping excursions and popcorn sessions of _Queer Eye for the Straight Guy_ with Jack and Jen had sharpened her fashion eye to rather keen. If Joey wasn't mistaken, both the sweater and the leather jacket proclaimed Armani. And those shoes—classy, most likely Italian. A scent of musky spice—different from the whiff she caught earlier on in the year and most likely expensive—wafted toward her. He wore just a splash of that cologne, not at all empowering. Just enough to tease a girl's senses. Make her want to come closer for a deeper thrill. Of course, cologne wasn't a brand new thing for Pacey these days. And it wasn't like she hadn't seen him dressed up and smelling nice before. But back when they were teens, he would more often than not make do with a good bar of Dial soap. Yet even then, she loved the smell of him.

"…I just wanted to make sure we…matched," Joey said, dropping her eyes to the floor and shrugging, trying to squelch that automatic frisson of desire that ran through her.

"You want us to _match_?" Pacey inquired, his tone wry. And just like that, Joey was thrown back to nine-years old.

"No, of course not," Joey replied, looking back up with an arch look. She grabbed her salmon-colored wool coat off the hook behind the door and slipped into it quick, before Pacey could step forward to assist her. "I just mean…regarding degrees of dressiness," she clarified, moving past him to step out into the hallway, shutting the door, and letting it click into automatic lock behind her.

They stood together in the hallway, close but not touching. Joey shifted in place, suddenly uncertain. So Pacey grasped her elbow, leaned down and brushed his lips against her cheek, chaste.

"Hey you," he murmured as he straightened.

The words floated down, wreaked havoc somewhere in the vicinity of her stomach. Good Lord! She needed to get a hold of herself. Stepping back, she reached out to squeeze his elbow, throwing out "hey yourself" and then headed down the hallway. After a startled pause, Pacey easily fell into step beside her, keeping a deferential space between them.

"So…do I look okay?" he asked, conversational.

"You'll do," Joey replied, blunt.

But then she grinned and bumped a friendly hip-check against him. Chuckling, Pacey pushed at her head with his hand, affectionate. Yet when he dropped his hand, skimming down her arm with intent to grasp her hand in his—a habitual gesture—Joey brought that hand up to tuck her hair behind her ear and stepped away from him, walking slightly faster. Pacey stopped and stared at his hand, then at the back of Joey's head.

"Uh…Jo?"

Several paces ahead of him, she paused, and turned around.

"Yeah?"

Pacey regarded her with a slight frown.

"What's up?"

When Joey thought back to how she and Pacey got together as teens, she realized they never really participated in that age-old ritual of courtship and wooing. They never had the initial good face put forward, the nervous politeness while getting to know each other, the harboring of faults until the positives outweighed the negatives.

So now she crossed her arms across her chest, her gaze steady and determined, and said, "Pacey…I think we need to set some ground rules."

"Ground rules? We're going to have ground rules?" Pacey asked, taking the requisite steps forward to stand directly in front of her. "I thought this was a date, not a sporting event," he continued, "Though of course, a certain kind of sport later tonight is not entirely out of the question." His blue eyes sparked devil-sexy down at her.

Joey took a big step back. "And _that_ is exactly why we need to have ground rules," she said, pointing at him.

Pacey emitted a small sound of exasperation and struck a recalcitrant pose.

"Joey—seriously?"

"Pace," she replied, "believe it or not, this is actually our very first _real_ date together."

"And?"

"And I thought you said you wanted a clean slate. "

Pacey stood silent for a moment, just looking at her. Then he nodded, curt, and resumed walking, gesturing for her to continue as well. Silence settled between them as they made their way out to his car.

"Don't be mad. I'm just—"

"I'm not mad," Pacey said, cutting her off. "I'm just thinking."

In fact, he was freaking out. Joey was doing that "Mad Planner" thing again, trying to set up strictures and guidelines for their path ahead. But how the hell do you set benchmarks for romance? You can't put a deadline on the whens and wheres and hows of the heart. They tried that once and it blew up in their faces. She walked alongside him now, quiet, probably wondering what was running through his brain. Pacey thought of her, sitting across from him that night at the Super K-Mart, the remains of their Battleship game between them (in which he handily defeated her, thank you very much), and what she told him, her tone wistful, her eyes far away.

_I don't know. I guess I feel different. Like...I've always had this tendency to assume that change, when it happens, can only be for the worse. You know? And lately, I kinda feel like that's not true... like whatever's waiting for me out there... may not be that bad. And even if it is... then not knowing about it... might actually be the good part._

And then he threw a wrench into her "not knowing" and tossed a whole hell of a lot of "already knew" and "know-too-much-already" into her lap. So the least he could do was let her set the terms of these renewed relations. Damn—everything with Joey was always a constant array of negotiations and treaties. Pacey smiled. He had really missed those wranglings.

At his BMW, he unlocked the doors with his alarm key-ring and then held the passenger door open for her. Once settled into his own seat—and after assuring that Joey was buckled into hers—he started the car, maneuvered it out of the parking lot and zoomed onto the road.

"So what are these ground rules of which you speak?" Pacey asked, pushing at a few buttons on the steering wheel to turn on the car radio and search for WZLX Boston 100.7, his favorite classic rock station. Luxury cars were the best, Pacey thought, content, when Poison's _Every Rose Has Its Thorn_ filled the car with soaring, power-tinged melody.

"Number one," Joey said, holding out one finger, "no hand-holding."

Pacey frowned.

"So am I allowed to touch you at all or will we be implementing a two-foot restraining border around you for the night?" he asked.

"Don't get prickly. I'm just trying to give us guidelines so we won't take things for granted. Think of it as a challenge. Can't your legendary Witter charm work without the usual elements in place?"

"My charm's legendary, huh?" A smirk lifted the corner of Pacey's mouth.

Joey rolled her eyes and continued. "It doesn't mean no touching _at all_. Just not the usual…couply stuff." Pink tinged her cheeks.

"For a girl that was so gung-ho on acting beyond lip service the other night—"

"Moving on," Joey interrupted him. "Number Two—no kissing."

"No kissing!"

"Not on the lips." When Pacey sent her a sidelong glance-bordering-on-glare, she added, defensive, "Well, if we were on a real old-fashioned date, kissing only comes after some amount of courtship."

"Jo—I hate to belabor the point, but we've already slept together. Not just the other night, but you know—kind of a lot before that. A long time ago, maybe, but still—what's done is done. I think we should focus in the now."

"Clean slate, remember?"

"You sure like invoking this "Clean Slate Clause" a lot." When he glanced at Joey, her jaw was set, mulish, and Pacey sighed. "Okay, fine. No kissing. On the lips. Tonight. What else?"

"Number three, no assumptions."

"Come again?"

"We both have prior expectations of how we act with one another during…um…intimate type of relations. This date is about getting to know each other again."

"This last rule is a bit confusing."

"Well, we'll just work it through as we go. I can't explain it, but I'll know it when it happens."

"Kind of like the Supreme Court definition of pornography—'I know it when I see it'."

"Okay, see, right there, you went someplace raunchy, and—well—that was actually to be expected. But I won't hold that as a 'prior offense' against you."

"My healthy outlook on all things sexual is an 'offense'? I take offense that that's offensive."

"Just trying to keep you from getting too perverted."

"Better than going overly prudish."

"We're regressing."

On the radio, Winger launched into the warbly _I Need You Now_.

"Pace—what's up with the 1980s power ballads?" Joey asked, reaching for the station buttons, only to get her fingers swiftly batted away by Pacey's hand. "For a man so hyped about 'in the now', your musical tastes seem decidedly fixed in the past."

"I have classic tastes, Miss Potter, as you well know."

"More like Jurassic. Those songs are so cheesy."

"Not at all. They're simple. Straightforward. Stand the test of time," Pacey pronounced. "Besides, I get enough of the whiny chick-rock with Jack as a roommate and Jen over all of the time. So, Jo…am_ I_ allowed to make up any rules for this outing?"

"_You're_ gonna come up with a rule?"

"I have my standards."

"Fine. Whatcha got?"

"Not necessarily a rule but…if I can get _you_ to transgress any of these rules, all bets are off."

"What do you mean?"

"I'll follow your guidelines. But I bet I can get you to break at least one of them _first_."

"You don't think I can resist the Witter Charm?"

"I've witnessed your inability to withstand it many times in the past."

"Ah, but that was long ago when I didn't know any better."

"So now you _have_ known better? Don't answer that. I'm just saying—I was a mere boy back then. Now I'm a man."

Joey laughed. "Did you _really_ just say that out loud?"

"Believe me, I'll have the last laugh this evening. Just you wait."

As they pulled into the parking lot of Fifteen Beacon Hotel, Extreme's _When I'm With You_ came on the radio. Joey was about to remark that a loud stadium band producing a soft love ballad was a fine example of oxymoron when she realized where they were. And her eyes nearly popped out of her head.

"We're going to The Federalist?" she asked, invoking the name, reverent, as they pulled up to valet parking.

"Yep," Pacey replied, nonchalant, as if eating out at one of the finest and most expensive restaurants in Boston was an everyday thing. Power players regularly dined there for classic yet sophisticated New England cuisine and its wine bar was renowned. It wasn't as extravagantly fancy as some other restaurants, but its quiet elegance drew the more circumspect of moneyed Boston to its environs.

"Pace—"

"What—you expected DOMINO'S pizza or something?"

"No—I just—"

"Assumptions, Josephine. Tsk, tsk, tsk," Pacey admonished, throwing her a cheeky grin before unbuckling his seatbelt and getting out of the car. "Thanks, Justin," he said, greeting the young, tuxedo-clad man holding his car door open, after a quick glance at his tiny black rectangle name badge. "Nice night, isn't it?" he commented as he dropped his keys into the youth's outstretched palm.

"Yes sir," the young man replied, responding to Pacey's infectious friendly grin with a genuine smile of his own.

A similar tuxedo-clad, well-scrubbed young man was holding her own door open, offering his hand for assistance. Joey took it and stepped out of the car. She smiled kindly at him, following Pacey's lead and checking his name badge to add a "Thanks, Bobby," and then made her way around the back of the car towards Pacey.

"Shall we?" he asked, his tone polite, sweeping his hand, elegant, towards the restaurant's entrance. He settled his hand, discreet, at the small of her back to guide her forwards and then dropped it, accompanying her in at a considerate distance—just slightly behind her, but barely touching.

Yet she felt his warmth and her senses thrummed at his nearness anyway.

XXXXX

_And you could hurt me__  
__With your bare hands__  
__You could hurt me__  
__Using the sharp end__  
__Of what you say__  
__I am lost to you now__  
__There's no amount of reason__  
__To save me_

When Joey thought about Pacey for most of this year—with that slicked-back curling mane, the goatee and moustache—it was almost like he was an entirely different person. At twenty years old, he was very much, as Grams once said, "a modern-day Errol Flynn" (though Joey referenced Robert Goulet, when she wanted to be snarky). He wore tailored suits and drove an expensive foreign car; cultivated sophisticated tastes and urbane inclinations. But he was still also a cut-up—funny, often goofy, frequent with a good quip and a hearty laugh. In the end, he always preferred a Pilsner over Perignon, and he had become so very dependable to lean on.

Pacey was her rock and she was his boulder, in kind. Dawson notwithstanding, they really were best friends. Best friends on a first date.

The last time she went on a first date with her best friend, she went to the only French restaurant in Capeside—Entre Nous—with Dawson for their one-month anniversary back in high school. Both fifteen years old, fumbling through unfamiliar formal trappings. Two kids playing dress up in a shiny adult world. But that romantic evening was cut short by an inadvertent squaring off with Mitch Leery and his date—that harshest critic of Dawson's films—Ms. Kennedy, and then a shifting focus toward an impromptu attempt to patch up the Leery marriage, when Jen showed up with Gale in tow. She and Dawson weren't together long enough to try it again. And they never really got it together after that. Never did. Probably never would.

She and Pacey often improvised their romantic evenings, on the _True Love_ or in the sundry ports they docked in. They had to work odd jobs to keep themselves clothed and fed throughout, so they kept things simple and efficient. They had the stars, they had each other, and that journey was adventure enough. Afterwards, during their senior year, they could never afford to go anyplace expensive or formal—she was saving for college and he was trying to make ends meet with rent and other living expenses. The freedom he enjoyed away from his family came at a cost. He spent all year paying it, in addition to his double academic workload. Even if they had the funds to splurge, Pacey didn't have the time to do so, with extra after-school sessions and late nights studying for those additional classes. And she would be right there alongside him, helping him, pushing him, or offering him some relief time when he needed it. He did so for her as well. They worked so hard that year.

But those spontaneous moments they created, despite their lack of money, were precious and singular. Martinelli's Sparkling Cider and a bundle of sunflowers from the Capeside Farmer's Market to dress up their usual pizza-and-buffalo wings dinners. Long drives in the Witter Wagoneer ending at the beach to talk and laugh in the sand, under the stars. Him, serving her a take-out Chinese food dinner on his mother's best china (smuggled out by a wily Gretchen), with tablecloth and fine silver (also via Gretchen), lighting a motley assortment of scented candles (spirited away from Doug's apartment) out on the porch of his beach cottage. Her, making him the odd breakfast in bed, when the Universe conspired to give them a Gretchen-less and Bessie&Bodie-less night (few and far between), when she would make the only things she knew how to with any true edibleness—scrambled eggs and toast with fresh-squeezed orange juice. They would pretend to be waking up in some far-off city, creating alter-egos and playing roles of adventurers on a gypsy-like journey across the world. He'd spin his handy globe so that one morning, it was Marakesh; another, Shanghai; still once more, Rio de Janeiro. And Paris, several times, whether or not his finger landed there.

The only real formal occasions they embarked upon together were Worthington events. The first, they were in the first flush of couple-hood; the second, they were splintering apart. Formality book-ended the opposite spectrums of their prior relationship. An inexplicable flash of dread hit Joey suddenly. She mentally shook her mind loose of its undermining influence. _Clean slate_, she told herself, firm.

Across the table, Pacey discussed wine choices with the maitre'd, speaking in an affable yet authoritative tone. Since he was the culinary expert, Joey deferred all ordering to him, so he wielded the only menu before him as he chatted things over with the obviously impressed older man hovering over him. She had indicated an inclination toward a fish entrée, so now the two men were debating about which the best culinary experience would be—a rich red with the pan-roasted king salmon or a fine sparkler with the French Dover sole. Apparently, though the general consensus was a white wine for all fish dishes, it was prevailing knowledge to those-in-the-know that a red went quite well with the richness of salmon. When Pacey put the entrée options back to her for final choice, Joey went with the Dover sole.

"Okay then," Pacey said, brisk and efficient. "I'm going to start with the Hand Cut Macaroni—the native lobster and chanterelle mushrooms are great in that," he told her. "And she'll start with the Lobster Bisque. Add a glass of the 1998 Dom Perignon with her entrée…" Pacey ignored the round eyes Joey threw at him when she heard that request, "…and I'll have the Tenderloin of Beef Wellington with a glass of the 1966 Bordeaux Chateau Canon."

"Most _excellent_ choices," the head waiter said, deep approval in his tone.

"Do you want a cocktail before the food comes?" Pacey asked Joey, handing her a small board that listed the special spirits of the house.

"Are you trying to get me drunk?" she teased, taking it from him and scanning the offerings.

"Well, you _are_ rather…_frolicky_ when you're inebriated."

Joey grinned, sticking her tongue out a little at him, then said, "I'll have the Peach Mango Martini."

She handed the board back to Pacey and after a quick perusal, he told the waiter, "And I'll have The Federalist Cocktail."

The man inclined his head and took both the cocktail board and the menu from Pacey before stepping away.

"Should you be drinking? You're designated driver. Lord knows, your car does _not_ fare well with tipsy drivers at its wheel," Joey said, somewhat teasing, yet also a bit wary.

They both knew that his BMW was on its second life, its first one truncated by being rammed into the front wall of the Leery home last Christmas. By Audrey. That recollection brought with it a slight, uncertain lull in the conversation for a moment. But then Pacey forged onward.

"It's just one drink, early on," he said, picking up his water glass to take a long sip. "And I can hold my liquor very well, thank you very much."

"I've had evidence to the contrary," Joey replied, a small, sardonic smile lifting the corner of her mouth, remembering insensible Pacey under the mistletoe last holiday season and their impromptu kiss beneath that very merry twig. Which he still, apparently, did not remember.

"I've had far more evidence of it coming from you. And recent, too," Pacey countered, recalling Joey's claiming of her Spin-the-Bottle kiss just a few weeks ago, alone with him while sprawled lazy in his bed. Lazy, and in the light of day, forgetful too.

They both started in their seats, having drifted off into dangerous territory with their thoughts, unbeknownst to each other. Rule Number Two—no kissing on the lips—brought them up short. Just then, another member of the wait staff came back with their drinks, providing them with a natural shift to focus on their libations instead.

"So what shall we toast to?" Pacey asked, holding his glass aloft.

Joey paused, then said, "New beginnings."

"I like that. Also, to 'forwards'."

"Hear, hear."

They clinked glasses and took their introductory sips. Joey closed her eyes as the different alcoholic flavors hit her tongue, as she absorbed the fruitiness-with-a-kick into her veins. She heard Pacey chuckle and when she opened her eyes, he was settled back in his chair, one large hand hugging his glass on the table. He was eyeing her with a cocky wryness, those blue eyes liquid warm. _Good Lord!_ she thought. _I'm not even tipsy but already, I feel giddy_. She dropped her eyes and took another sip of her drink, lingering longer this time. She heard stifled laughter from Pacey's direction and once again cursed the fact that they knew each other too well already.

You can't conceal your flaws from someone who's created a whole childhood out of exposing them for his pleasure and your pain. You can't pretend to be all sunny light when the boy in question knew every one of your dark spots, fishing them out for sport at times; other times, facilitating you through the worst of them. You can't hide from someone who's had you in plain sight for almost an entire lifetime.

But you could _try_.

"Tell me something from the past year and half that I _don't_ know about you," Joey said, after taking one more fortifying sip of her drink and then meeting his amused gaze head on. "Let's see if we can actually learn something new about each other."

"Like…?"

"Like what's your best first date line?"

Pacey frowned. "We really gonna do this?"

"Oh, c'mon, Pace! Play along. I really want to know."

"Okay…" he said, taking a swig from his drink and then sitting forward, elbows on the table, cradling his glass between both hands. "Um…I often like to comment on something distinctive she's wearing." His right hand dropped off the glass, his fingers playing with the silverware before him, twisting and twirling. "Maybe her earrings, a special pendant, a certain perfume—"

"A bracelet?"

His fingers stilled and then Pacey let out a small laugh. "Yeah. Something like that."

"Well, it worked with me."

"What?"

"The line."

He was quiet, and then murmured, "Wasn't a line."

"Hmm?" Joey inquired, leaning forward.

"Wasn't a line," Pacey repeated. "Not with you."

She stayed silent for a long moment and the memory hovered there between them—as all memories did and there were so many. Would they ever get beyond them? Did they _have_ to?

"You always did pay attention," Joey said, running her index finger up and down the side of her chilled glass, the condensation rubbing dampness onto her skin. "I like how you pay attention," she added.

"Well, I have to admit in retrospect, that you had a big hand in that. You pretty much browbeat me into submission on several occasions."

"I did not!" Joey protested. Then, she relented, sheepish. "Well, not _all_ the time, anyway."

"I'd say 99.9 of the time, most definitely. Between you and my sisters, I never had a chance," Pacey said, taking another sip of his drink and then tilting it toward Joey in offering. She shook her head, inclined down to her own cocktail, and he nodded, reaching over to take it as she slid the glass toward him. "Mmm…fruity," he commented, handing it back.

"So what's my distinctive thing tonight?" Joey asked, relaxing into the initial stages of spirits-induced tranquility.

"Well, I like that thingamabob in your hair," Pacey replied, gesturing toward the crystal flower-star pin over her right ear. "It looks old."

"It's vintage!"

"Semantics. Still, it's pretty."

Joey let an expectant silence linger before venturing forth, teasing. "Aren't you going to say _I'm_ pretty too?"

"Ah, but you see, that would be the _expected_ thing to say! I'm all for the element of surprise—say things when you least expect it. So I won't fall into the trap of your assumptions. That's Rule Number Three, if I recall."

"Touche," Joey said. "Besides, sometimes the best things come from the unexpected."

Quiet hovered again as soft smiles settled upon both of their faces. A shared glance confirmed a mutual journey through conjoined precedents. They both shrugged and then took long drinks of their cocktails.

"So, Pace…you still never answered my question."

"What question was that?"

"Are you happy?"

Pacey recalled the way she had asked him, her head tilted just so, in the board games aisle of that K-Mart, fingers twirling her plastic battleship between her two hands, her words firing the salvo for his surrender with a soft question. And he said, _The real answer is this. I currently have in my life everything that I could possibly want. Except for one thing._

"I believe I answered you already that night."

"You neatly side-stepped the question by dragging me over to the Nachos Bar for soda and cheese from concentrate."

"Let's just say that I no longer desire nachos. And that one thing is sitting right in front of me, grilling me on the state of my current contentment."

Joey's knee-jerk smirk stretched into an acknowledging smile. But then, "So are you currently content?"

"You're not going to drop this, are you?"

"Nope."

The waiter chose that moment to return with their appetizers and Pacey tabled the topic. Joey let him. There was food, they were hungry, and so they allowed that line of inquiry to go unexplored, for the moment. They tucked, enthusiastic, into the fine edibles before them,

"Can I try that?"

"Would you like some of this?"

"Wow! That's yummy!"

"Oh—this is really good!"

The main entrees brought even more praises, especially after partaking in the standard wine-serving ritual—the ceremonial bottle-opening, cork-sniffing, and wine-tasting all performed with dash, flash and a jaunty air. And then Joey tasted her first sip of really expensive champagne. She was glad Pacey only ordered a glass. She heard bottles of Perignon often ranged in the hundreds of dollars. Surely one glass would not cost nearly so much. Sipping daintily, she closed her eyes to savor its taste on her tongue. There really _was_ a difference, she thought, swallowing and then sighing. Also, it was divine alongside her Dover sole.

"Would you like to try a sip of my Bordeaux?" Pacey asked, holding his glass of deep red wine toward her. "It might clash a bit with your entrée, but what the hell, right?"

Joey set her champagne glass down on the table and reached for Pacey's glass. She sipped, dainty again, and the smooth liquid with its fruity richness was heaven.

"That's wonderful," she said, a giddy smile spreading across her face.

Pacey took his glass back and grinned at her.

"Careful, Miss Potter. Don't want you slobbering over dessert," he teased.

She sent him a faux-affronted look and then slipped into flirty.

"Well, who's to say we'll have dessert _here_?" she tossed out, her hazel eyes turning sensual smoky.

Pacey's grin faltered and he shifted uneasily in his chair. Spearing a small portion of his Beef Wellington, he focused hard on placing it into his mouth and chewing. Joey eyed him, mischief sparking in her gaze.

"Stop that," Pacey told her, his tone firm, holding his fork out, jutting it toward her as if it was some kind talisman for protection.

She laughed and took another sip of her champagne.

"Pacey Witter!"

They both looked up, startled at the booming female voice calling out his name. The voice came attached to a tall, strapping, matronly woman dressed in an austere but elegant black suit. She was striding straight to their table. Pacey got to his feet as soon as he saw her approach. Joey placed the woman somewhere in her early forties. She was easily just over six feet tall—almost eye to eye with Pacey!—with snapping aqua eyes and curling butter-yellow hair bound by a black velvet ribbon. The flowing tresses spilled down her back, contrasting with her stern demeanor, yet it also seemed fitting—she carried herself with effortless hauteur and the hair served to soften that severity. When Pacey grinned at her in welcome, she smiled.

And the smile transformed her face from merely handsome to almost pretty.

"Ms. Priscilla Ralston," Pacey greeted, shaking her hand. "May I present my…um…dining companion, Ms. Josephine Potter?"

Joey extended her hand, automatic, and Priscilla Ralston took it into a solid handshake, worthy of any man's in myriad boardrooms, everywhere.

"And what, pray tell, brings you here tonight, thus allowing me this brief pleasurable moment of your company?" Pacey inquired, putting just enough irony in that courtly statement to make its delivery charming.

Joey swore that if she could, Ms. Ralston would have blushed. She saw the way those light blue eyes flickered, appreciative and also coy.

"Business, what else?" she replied, inclining her head toward a far table where a circle of men—all in their fifties and above, each distinguished and very wealthy, from the look of it—sat, awaiting her return. Several waved jauntily upon seeing Pacey. Pacey waved back. "I just wanted to come over to thank you for that _outstanding_ piece of advice—" She said this with an emphasis that in olden times would have been accompanied by a hearty slap on the back "—that you gave me yesterday. I—and several of my cronies over there—made an immense killing on the Market today. We're here celebrating and who should we find but the man with the grand plan himself, dining here as well!"

"Well, congratulations!" Pacey said. "Glad I could be of service."

"What's that you're drinking?" Priscilla Ralston asked. "I hope that's the '66 Bordeaux in your glass. And is your lady-friend drinking Perignon?"

"It is and yes, she is," Pacey concurred.

"Well, you shouldn't be confined to merely one glass each. I'm ordering whole bottles for both of you."

"Oh no! You can't!" Joey protested, realizing quick that full bottles were _very_ dear on the financial end.

"Well I _can_ and I _will_," Priscilla said in a no-nonsense tone, with a finality that closed many a shrewd deal and negotiation in her customary business dealings. She motioned to the maitre'd and made her requests. He did not bat an eye but slid a sly, fraternal glance at Pacey, who cracked an acknowledging wry smile in return.

"Pacey," Joey hissed, grabbing Pacey's arm when Priscilla walked away to confer with the maitre'd once more before he went down to the wine cellar. "You can't let her do this!"

"Jo, if I try to stop her, she'll be offended," he explained, extricating himself from her grip and then squeezing her wrist, reassuring, before setting her hand back onto the table-top. "Believe me—this is _nothing_ for her. If she made even half of what I projected today on the Market, she could probably buy this whole restaurant. Hell—the entire hotel!"

Joey watched as Pacey turned to indulge the returning Priscilla in some further amiable conversation, at first exchanging a whispered chat and then drawing Joey into the discussion with some well-placed yet smoothly interspersed references to literary figures and artistic endeavors—two areas which he knew she was exceedingly well-versed in—allowing lively engagement of all three parties at the table. Joey marveled at the easy way he maneuvered the conversation, remembering how deft he was at that first Worthington dinner when he charmed the faculty big-wigs and the Dean of Admissions so naturally. He said it was because he had nothing invested in those exchanges back then, yet here he was, easily doing it again. And Priscilla Ralston exuded a greater air of power and privilege than anyone she had ever run across, even on-campus. So too did those men at Priscilla's table in the corner, who were chatting amongst themselves now, nodding amiably over at their trio from time to time. And Pacey was so relaxed, so calm, so…cool and collected. Like he was one of them.

He was comfortable around power. And power was enchanted with him.

The epiphany took Joey's breath away.

"So I simply must return to my jolly old gents," Priscilla was saying now. "So lovely to meet you, Josephine, and Pacey—I'll ring you in the morning to take care of any follow-up."

"Sure thing," Pacey said.

"I'll instruct the maitre'd to prepare those two bottles to go, as you requested"—Joey threw a glance at Pacey, which he did not acknowledge—"Please enjoy."

"Thank you, Priscilla," Pacey said.

"Oh believe me—it is _always_ my pleasure," she replied.

Joey caught that flash again—more intense this time, though still tempered. But she recognized the gleam. Priscilla Ralston _wanted_ Pacey. Beneath that polite veneer and the brisk exterior, the inherent female in her was responding to that _thing_ Pacey had.

Something about Pacey just _oozed_ sex. Not in that predatory way that most college boys of her acquaintance exuded. Pacey oozed _sexiness_. Just looking at Pacey, a girl _knew_ he would be good in bed. Because he would care. He would pay attention. He would be sweet. And he would make sure fulfillment was reached. Every. Single. Time. Thing was, Joey did not need to speculate nor gather testimonials from others. She already knew Pacey was _great_ in bed. And from what she could tell, the years in-between had only enhanced that fact. She grew moist just thinking about it.

As Priscilla left them, Pacey glanced down, caught Joey looking at him, and noted the feverish sheen in her eyes. A slow, sexy grin spread across his lips. She blushed and looked away, raising a nervous hand to fiddle with the star-flower pin in her hair.

Dammit. Off-balance. Again.

XXXXX

_So break me__  
__Take me__  
__Just let me__  
__Feel your arms again__  
__Break me__  
__Take me__  
__Just let me__  
__Feel your love again_

"I can't believe that one glass of champagne cost more than my entire dinner!"

Pacey chuckled at Joey's indignant tone as he adroitly maneuvered his BMW through Boston's streets. After a pleasant dessert of fruit and fine cheeses (during which he and she forwent any alcoholic accompaniment to get sober and grounded), a necessary trip to the ladies' room found Joey sneaking a look at the previously forbidden restaurant menu at the hostess podium while Pacey took care of the check. Her discovery rendered her now almost apoplectic in the passenger seat next to him, while Jason Mraz covered _I Melt With You_ on the radio. The station had switched to live modern retro covers of those 80s songs, mollifying Joey, who never had any say on the tune rotation in any car Pacey was driving. Ever. But this, at least, gave them a more acceptable musical halfway to meet upon.

"It was only one dollar more than your meal," he pointed out. "And I told you not to look at the menu."

"Pacey—my glass of Perignon was $45! I shudder to think about what the entire bottle that woman bought us cost."

"Then don't think about it. And that woman has a name, you know."

"Yes, I know. I'm just saying…"

"You're always saying _something_ about almost everything."

"Well, I have a _brain_, you know."

"Believe me, I know. On that point, you have never been modest."

Pacey tossed in a grin with that statement, removing any sting from its delivery. A grudging smile lifted a corner of Joey's lips.

"We sure made off with a good portion of their wine cellar," she said, shrugging toward the wine bottles in the back seat. "I was surprised they didn't card us. Do I really look that old?"

"Having three sisters, I learned long ago not to comment on the age-thing with females," Pacey chuckled, as Joey threw an arch glance his way. "Anyway, I've been there so many times with Rich and the guys and they always order so much alcohol to ply our clients with, I think the restaurant staff assumes we're all of age. We bring a lot of business and high-end regulars there. I guess they assume anyone we bring in is of age too. Even if they _might_ look fourteen." Pacey smirked at the second arch glance thrown his way. "But money talks, y'know. Guarantees silences too, on some matters."

Joey nodded, abstracted, and then turned her head to study nothing in particular outside her window. Numerous buildings and late dog-walkers and shining street lamps whizzed by. Within that visual haze, she transposed the image of Pacey when he answered his door that one night, the day before he took off for Capeside to see his father. She was on the verge of knocking, and he threw his door open before she could, and there he was—hair shorn, smooth baby-face, boyish bemusement. Vintage Pacey. _That_ boy. The one who introduced her to crazy love and insane passion. And mind-numbing, soul-searing heartbreak.

Yet despite the awkward maneuvering at Pacey's apartment that evening—the talk riddled with heavy pauses, the almost-kiss that she cut off before it turned into exactly what she hoped and feared—she still found herself sitting next to him on his couch, just barely one hour later, stuffing their faces with greasy pepperoni and mushroom pizza slices, throwing wadded-up paper napkins at each other. Amused, she watched him shove his slice of pizza into his mouth and she thought, _He never was a dainty eater_. Then she wondered: _What would it be like to have a clandestine affair with Pacey right now?_

The very next night, they embarked on that very thing. And now, here they were.

Meanwhile, Pacey focused his attention onto the road ahead, his thoughts more perplexed behind his outer mask of affability. Joey was edgy. He could tell. Tracking backwards, Pacey recalled that they had a perfectly fine time at the restaurant. Plus, he had kept a respectful circumference of non-touching around her. So what if he would brush ever-so-often a little closer here and there? He liked the way she unconsciously snapped to attention, how that electric frisson of awareness crackled between them, heightening nerves and senses. When they were kids, they mistook that static for aggressive antagonism. Since their teens, they both recognized that energy as more elemental and connective. And infinitely more dangerous.

Now Joey was in retreat-and-retrench mode. Strung taut so as not to break. Yet Pacey wasn't immune to that feeling either. Both were gliding on fragile ice. They fixed that which was broken before, but could they fix this again, if it broke once more? His mouth glimmered toward grim as Ben Harper crooned his take of _In Your Eyes_ on the radio.

"Do you like this version?"

Pacey glanced over at Joey, looking at him, inquiring.

"Of the song?"

"Yeah."

Pacey shrugged. "I'll always think of Lloyd Dobler hoisting that boombox over his head outside Diane Court's window, standing in front of that Buick in the driveway."

"Wasn't he standing in the rain?"

"Jo, if he was standing in the rain, wouldn't that be counter-productive to that battery-powered instrument proclaiming his love in Peter Gabriel's soaring vocals?"

"But I remember him being in the rain!"

"That was another time, when he's in that phone booth. Remember? 'I told her I loved her and she gave me a pen'."

"I just remember Lili Taylor telling Lloyd not to be a guy. 'The world is full of guys. Be a _man_'. Lloyd Dobler drove a Buick?"

"It was some kind of American car anyway. He taught Diane how to drive in that car."

"Yes, he did," Joey said, her voice trailing soft. "Stick-shift. He taught her to drive stick-shift."

Pacey's eyes were focused forward but his memories cast back to a pair of teenagers stopping-and-starting in an old light-blue Ford truck. "So I take it you like this Ben Harper version then? The original is pretty singular, I think."

"It is. And so many remakes just do the same old song over again. The best ones transform them. Make them unique, and sometimes, even better than the original."

Joey was fingering that star-flower pin in her hair again, thoughtful and reflective. Somehow, Pacey didn't think they were talking just about the song anymore.

XXXXX

_That place was so nice, Pace. They had individual towels in the bathroom_!

Strolling down the hallway at her Worthington dormitory, they chatted companionably, car ruminations left on the front seat of his BMW.

_Really? Laid out in baskets and everything?_ Pacey teased.

_Mm-hmm._

_Well, if that's not the hallmark of a classy joint, I don't know what is._

_You do definitely know how to treat a lady,_ Joey said, approving. She stopped at her dorm room door and turned around to face him.

_Well, I gotta spend my money on _**_something_** Pacey replied, automatic. Then he stopped short, mortified. _Oh, that came out totally wrong. Because you are not-- n-not something that I just spend money on. It's not like a possession— _He paused again, realizing how inane he sounded. Yet still, he pressed onward. _…But I would. I would, and I do._

_Well_, Joey replied, her eyebrows raised, tone sardonic, _Why do you think I'm with you_? And then it was her turn to be mortified because that did not come out as she intended either.

_Ooo-kay_, Pacey said, chuckling, somewhat dubious.

Joey took a breath and then tried a diversionary tack. _How's work goin', Pace_? she asked, half-glancing away from him. Even though they had bumped into some of his work associates at the restaurant, they never really finished their conversation about his new vocation. Nor explored his actual feelings about his current line of work.

_Uh, it's going really well, thank you,_ Pacey replied, his eyes flitting over her head at the door behind her. Dropping his gaze to meet hers again, he told her, _I got a promotion, actually._

_Really?_ Joey asked. To what?

_I...don't know,_ he answered, rueful. _There's no title, but I get an office, and, uh, I get a secretary. That's kind of cool._

_Ooh!_

_Yeah._

_Fancy! You certainly won't want to talk to me after tonight, so..._

_You see, I knew you would understand!_

Joey emitted faux-outrage while Pacey laughed.

_Don't kick a girl when she's down,_ she admonished. Then, she took on a little-girl tone, bordering on teasing-petulant. _You know, I'm strapped for cash, and they cut my hours because everyone's on spring break, drinking elsewhere._

Joey's eyes connected with his, mirthful. His twinkled back, in kind. Suddenly, they became aware of how near they were to each other. And the wafting scent of the slightest spicy musk beckoned her so much closer. Pacey's gaze fell to Joey's lips and his blue eyes grew dark-intent. In a husky voice, he murmured, _I guess that means you're free for dinner next Saturday._

Her own eyes soft, pooling brown, Joey replied, teasing, _Well, anything for a free meal._

Pacey stepped further into her, bringing his arms up, resting closed fists on either side of her waist. If he opened them, his fingers would clutch her to him and he was still treading careful. _Classy lady like you, I might even throw in a free dessert._

_You must be serious about me,_ Joey murmured, fingering the front edges of his leather jacket, a little breathless.

Pacey bent his head and she brought herself up on reflex, intent on meeting his descending mouth, halfway. But the angles shifted wrong, bumping them off, awkward. They stopped short, chuckling. Pacey cupped each of Joey's elbows into gentle palms, holding her away from him. Bending his knees a bit, he peered into her face, eye-level with her.

_Ok, well... I think that's my cue,_ he said, chuckling his retreat, honoring their pact from before. Improvising, he pressed a light kiss to her temple, touched his forehead to hers briefly and then stepped away from her. _I'm just gonna cut my losses._

_Ok,_ Joey said, half-laughing and still breathless, having come _thisclose_ to breaking. Yet Pacey was sticking to the game plan. She really needed to be more vigilant about the rules. Especially since _she_ was the one who set them. Number One: no hand-holding. Number Two: no kissing on the lips. Number Three: no assumptions.

_Um... I'll have my secretary call you about dinner._

They smiled at each other, now the requisite two feet apart. Yet willing the moment to extend just a little bit longer.

_Pacey, I had a lovely time._

_So did I._

Another pause inserted itself. Then,

_Good night,_ Joey said.

Stepping forward, Pacey took both of her hands into his, bending to kiss the back of each in turn. Perfectly within the guidelines, since those hands were quite a distance down from her lips. Pacey's earlier addendum to Rule Number Two gave him inventive leeway, and he was not remiss in utilizing it. Joey sent a benevolent smile down toward his bowed head, outwardly placid even though the gesture flipped her insides, his sweetness aching her throat.

_Good night,_ he said, standing straight again, grinning.

Joey's smile widened in answer. As Pacey turned to walk away, she kept her eyes on him, watching his leather-clad back receding. Then she sighed, faced the door, and took her keys from her jacket pocket.

"Uh—hey, Jo!" She stopped, whirled around, and found Pacey striding back toward her. "Um…it's early yet. Do you wanna stay out for a little bit longer?"

When Joey paused, uncertain, Pacey quickly added, "I respectfully invoke Rule Number Three to move beyond assumptions. One would _assume_ this would be the typical end of the date but I would like to submit my own alternative conclusion. "

"And that would be…?"

"How about a little bit of adventure?"

"You want to take me on an adventure at—," she checked the elegant silver watch encircling her left wrist, "—nine-thirty at night?"

"What's the matter, Grandma—past your usual bedtime?"

Joey reached out to smack his arm and he snaked his fingers around to gently grasp her wrist, chuckling.

"I almost got you to transgress Rule Number Two just now," he said, pulling her a little closer. "And then all bets would've been off."

"True," Joey admitted, resisting that magnetic pull asserting itself. Though her body wanted to, her mind hollered STOP. "If I was a smart girl, I'd call it a night and retreat with my triumph safe in hand."

"'Safe' is the operative word in that statement. Why not be a little reckless?"

"Are you daring me, Mr. Witter?"

Pacey held her gaze—stared down into those brown eyes gleaming sardonic—and tossed challenge back in return. He stepped closer and Joey backed up until she was pressed against the closed door behind her. Stopping when just an inch separated them, he inclined his head so that his lips hovered over her right ear, his chin brushing the star-flower pin, jostling it.

On a breath warm and soft, he whispered, "Dare, Josephine."

XXXXX

_Feels like being underwater__  
__Now that I've let go__  
__And lost control__  
__Water kisses fill my mouth__  
__Water fills my soul_

"So _this_ is what you consider an adventure? Driving aimlessly round-about Boston and out of it, looking for something to do?"

They had been driving for a good half-hour. Pacey had made a quick phone call on his cell just before they left, but walked away a short distance in the parking lot, so Joey couldn't hear who he was calling or what he was telling said person. And he refused to tell her any details, despite her numerous queries.

"I'm not driving aimlessly. This round-abouting has a purpose."

"And that purpose would be?"

"You ask too many questions, Potter."

"Said Curiosity to the Cat. You intend to kill me for this crime of incessant inquiry?"

"Jury's still out on that one. Seriously—can't you just give yourself up to the pleasures of not-knowing and possible-surprise?"

"When you promise me adventure and then drive me out to the middle of nowhere, or rather—," Joey amended, seeing a road sign emerge from the darkness, its reflective letters catching her attention, "—Quincy, I just have to beg the question."

"And I just have to beg you _not_ to question, period. Just let go to the spontaneity of the moment," Pacey said, his eyes flicking to his rear-view mirror before exiting off Route 93.

"The moment's been extended for half-an-hour. I'm getting tired."

"We're almost there," he assured her.

"Where?" Joey asked, turning toward Pacey, her tone just a bit plaintive.

"Here."

Joey glanced out the window and saw that they were fast approaching the Quincy Youth Arena, home to local youth hockey leagues and tournaments. Non-plussed, she stayed silent as Pacey turned the car into the empty parking lot, driving toward a lonely silver Lexus parked right in front of the building. A short, bald, pudgy man lounged in its front seat. He got out of his car when they pulled up behind him.

"Stay right here," Pacey instructed, cutting the engine. "I'll be right back."

After disembarking from his car, he went over to the man, engaging in jovial conversation. The man craned his head to look over Pacey's shoulder, peering at Joey in the BMW. Nodding vigorous, he gestured an enthusiastic thumbs up and Pacey laughed while she bristled. A short time later, the man dropped a set of keys into Pacey's hand and then got back into his Lexus to drive away.

"Okay," Pacey said, opening his car door and bending down to tell Joey, "Let's go."

"What was that all about?" Joey asked, stepping out of the passenger seat and coming around to meet Pacey at the back. He had unlocked the trunk and was now rummaging through a big black duffel bag.

"Er…nothing. He was just giving me the keys for the building. He's a client of mine and owns a large share of this arena. Very big honcho in this community. Allowed me to call in a favor."

Pacey picked out a large gray sweatshirt with the Boston Red Sox insignia on it and handed it to Joey.

"Not _that_," Joey said, taking it. "I figured as much. I meant the other thing."

"Oh—he was just expressing his opinion of my…um…extremely intellectual company this evening."

"Yeah, right," she replied, sarcastic. Then, "What's this for?"

"For inside. We're both vastly overdressed for the activity I have I mind," he pointed out, plucking out his black and yellow hockey jersey—the one with WITTER emblazoned across the back in bold black letters—and a pair of black sweatpants.

"Why didn't you tell me before? I could've changed into something else before we drove all the way out here."

"Didn't think of it. Spontaneity and all that," he said, shedding the leather jacket and tossing it into the trunk. He stripped off his sweater next, throwing that onto the jacket, and then reached for his belt.

"You're undressing out _here_?" Joey asked, her eyes going wide.

"There's no one around, Jo. Now get to stripping."

"Wait a minute. You want me to get naked?"

"Uh…not _naked_. At least, not _yet_," he added with a devilish, rueful smile. "And no need to sound so mortified. You forget—I've already seen you naked. Very recently, I might add."

"Pace—we're in a parking lot," she said, glancing around. But that asphalt terrain was completely empty.

When she turned back to Pacey, Joey couldn't suppress a giggle. He was standing before her in just his boxers and a white t-shirt, his jeans bunched about his ankles. Gamely, she draped the sweatshirt over the side of the trunk and then shrugged out of her salmon coat, handing it to him. Pacey took the coat and then bent to swoop up his jeans, tossing both items into the trunk. Meanwhile, Joey impulsively peeled off her silk top, gamely giving in to this instant of recklessness. She threw it in beside his clothing, leaving her only in a vanilla satin bra above her black slacks, The cool night air shivered her, but when she turned to Pacey, a mischievous smile bending her lips, she saw stark desire flash in his eyes and heat liquefied her instead. He abruptly looked away and grabbed his sweatpants, focusing instead on covering his bare legs. Joey quickly donned the sweatshirt.

"Here," Pacey said, gruff, thrusting a pair of thick white cotton socks at her, his gaze still fixed downward at the pile of clothes on the duffel bag. Shifting his eyes to the thin material covering Joey's lower half, he frowned a little. "You gonna be okay in just those slacks? It's cold in there."

"Sure," Joey told him, perching onto the bumper of the car and bending down to slip off her low heels to put the socks on over her bare feet. Afterwards, she walked over to the sidewalk and waited, pulling down on the edges of the sweatshirt sleeves so her hands were completely swallowed. After throwing on a pair of open-toed Adidas sport sandals, Pacey finally shut the trunk. Turning, he saw her standing there, in her socks, engulfed by his sweatshirt, its length reaching almost to her knees.

"You look like a kid in those clothes," he observed, chuckling.

Memory tugged at her, tossing Joey back to fifteen years old—when they struggled with clothing—or non-clothing actually—outside of his parked vehicle after their long ago snails expedition. Her, wrapped in a scratchy blanket, grimacing and growling. Him, subdued and smiling, equally blanket-robed. Both, settling into the front cab of the Witter truck. Recent refugees from a fast-rising creek, survivors of a long, bickering wade through it.

_Once again, you like putting me in the most awkward situations and watching me squirm, Pacey._

_No—it's nothing like that. I was just thinking to myself that when you loosen up you're not half bad to be around...bordering on fun even._

Joey remembered being caught off-guard by that admission, confused. Even moreso by his sweet smile that accompanied it. And the warmth that flushed through her, abruptly transforming her usual annoyance into a pleased-in-spite-of-herself blush. Looking back now, she realized how seminal that moment was—that subtle yet significant shift from childhood enmity to a begrudging, evolving mutual respect. This retrospective glance highlighted that small moment—an instant when she started those first infinitesimal steps toward growing up. And he did too.

On this night, several years later, Joey gazed levelly at Pacey and told him, "I'm not a kid anymore, Pace."

He paused, looking at her, bemused.

"No, most definitely not," Pacey concurred. "But then, neither am I."

Inside, the lights were all on already, glaring into bright relief the hockey ice rink at center. Joey stood poised at the edge of it, staring out at its great white expanse while Pacey rummaged through the skates in the storage area trying to locate appropriate sizes. Two boys within a period of several months took her to a solitary, empty, rink of ice.

Right before Christmas, Eddie had taken her to a vacant TD Banknorth Garden—home of the Boston Bruins—access granted by his father, who had worked that arena several times over his lifetime. Eddie brought her there to show off his "masculine grace" after she found his ice skates in his apartment. His _figure skating_ ice skates. Remembering that occasion, a reluctant smile pulled at Joey's mouth. Eddie was so mortified to admit that to her. But then again, that was a mortifying morning. Well…after the first part of it anyway—the part where she and he slept together for the first time. That part was lovely. Because it was brand new—completely and utterly brand-new. No history, no baggage, no pre-conceptions. No angst. For the first time in her life, Joey had succumbed to her more sensual inclinations sooner, without all the usual hemming and hawing. It had been liberating.

But it also threw her for a loop. So much so that she uncharacteristically overcompensated when she found out she had overslept for her English final. And she rushed off to Hetson, willy-nilly, to request a completely inappropriate second chance exam. She knew better. Hetson was right to refuse her. Then later, the tension escalated and Eddie lost his bartending job at Hell's Kitchen after punching Hetson in the jaw, in her defense. And his, too. Once more, inappropriate. Seemed she wasn't the only one thrown into a tizzy at that morning's rather amorous events. Yet afterwards, Eddie brought her to that enormous ice rink, skated backwards figure-eights all around her, and they met in the middle, making up and melting all of that misplaced bravado into inconsequential puddles around their skate-clad feet.

"Your feet haven't grown too much larger since the last time we went skating, have they?"

Pacey's query cut into her recollections, bringing her back to this ice rink, much smaller, more intimate, geared toward childhood games rather than professional play, yet equally vast and empty. Except for Them. _Us_, Joey thought, turning that notion around in her head.

"Seeing as the last time we shared time on a rink, I kicked your ass in Slap-Shot Shootout, I think I'd have to say with certainty—yes," she said, recalling that rather eventful Saturday afternoon with a righteous fondness.

"That was the last time we went skating? At the roller rink during Becky Gannon's birthday party?" Pacey asked, approaching Joey with some ice skates. He had already put a pair on his own feet that obviously fit him fine.

"You refused to set foot on another rink with me after that day, remember?" Joey reminded him, reaching out to take the pair from his hand and finding them to be the exact right size. "These are fine. Perfect, actually."

"Oh, that's right," Pacey recalled absently, brushing past her to get onto the ice. "But I would've kicked your ass if we were on the ice that day and you know it. Since then, it's been partly _your_ own refusal to get back into a rink with _me_. You wanted to make sure the results would last into posterity," he said, his voice louder as he skated around the outer edges, gliding farther away from her. "Admit it!" he hollered, from the far side of the rink.

"I admit no such thing!" Joey laughed, glancing up from where she perched on the edge of a bench, putting on her skates. "And you wouldn't be acknowledging my victory even now if Gretchen hadn't been fortunate enough to witness it back then!"

Pacey stopped at mid-rink, laughing.

"C'mon lazy ass! Hurry up—the ice feels great!"

Looking at him there, Joey froze, seeing different iterations of him streaking across the ice—Pacey at five, at eight, at twelve, at fifteen, at seventeen. All the Paceys crashed into one another, as he stood out there at twenty, the conflated figure of every incarnation from boy to man, beckoning at her to come out onto the ice. A part of her was suddenly terrified.

And then there was a grin, a bit of taunt, a little smirk, and beneath, an irresistible charm.

"Whatsa' matter? Scared?"

Joey lifted her chin in automatic defiance and stared him down. Tugging once more to ensure the tightness of her laces, she popped up from that bench, and started her glide from that outside periphery toward the center of the rink.

To Pacey.

XXXXX

_So break me__  
__Take me__  
__Just let me__  
__Feel your arms again__  
__Break me__  
__I'll let you make me__  
__Just let me__  
__Feel your love again_

Joey skated once around the entire rink to get her bearings (while Pacey sped to and fro, slicing in and out and around her), and started going faster, once familiarity resettled itself into her blades. She loved ice-skating—loved the feeling of the glide across and the coldness of the ice and the way she could turn and twirl and speed whenever she wanted to. They used to go ice-skating all the time—she and Dawson and Pacey. Out of the three of them, Pacey was the superior pure skater, deft on his feet, quick in his spurts, able to stop and slash and reverse at will. Put a hockey stick in his hands and it was all over. He was a bona-fide skating phenom. But Joey fancied herself an Olympic ice skater once, even took classes so she could learn to jump and sit and spin. Then she grew too tall and gangly and the classes got expensive and her mom got sick. So she shelved those short-lived dreams but always grew wistful again whenever her feet touched the ice. She did an easy spin—just two revolutions, undemanding on her ankles—and firmly stuck the finish. Giddy, Joey threw her arms up as if flourishing off the end of a brilliant skating routine and curtsied. Pacey applauded her from across the way.

"Well done, Potter! I give it a 10!"

He put his fingers into his mouth and whistled loud, adding a "Bravo! Bravo!" before launching back into his speed spurts. Joey settled into leisurely-mode, gliding around the outer circle of the rink, taking her time, and watching Pacey work the middle and outwards. She loved to watch him on the ice. He exuded such a powerful grace—so lithe, so at ease, yet also, so much authority. In that familiar black-and-yellow hockey jersey—her favorite and his—he streaked back and forth, flipping directions at will, and moving at fast clips throughout. Sure, she beat him once at Slap-Shot Shootout at the roller rink, but he was right. She never had a chance on the ice. Pacey _owned_ the ice.

Joey noted how absorbed, how deeply concentrating he was, as he skated to and fro. As if he was working out some things while he physically pushed himself around the ice. She knew his father's recent hospital stay shook Pacey deeply. The morning after his Capeside return--following that previous night (or rather, early morning), when another impromptu sensual union reunited them--they had indulged their more carnal natures with a frenzied, but deeply-satisfying wake-up quickie.

Afterwards, when they were feeling soft and sentimental, Pacey told her about the stomach-dropping fear he felt when he got that initial phone call, the tussles with Doug over their father's care, his own feelings about the things his father told him, the pride he never thought he'd see, shining from his dad's eyes. Meanwhile, Joey ran reassuring hands over his shoulders and his back; tender fingers through his hair, over his jaw, onto his face. Just touching him. Because he needed it. She needed it, too. So he was late for work that morning. And she called in a favor, got a replacement for her shift. But they didn't care.

Pacey told her about seeing Dawson, too. About a flickering feeling of resolution, surprisingly strong, even mutual, for the angst of the past. Or was it absolution? It all was so murky now, in hindsight. Yet the two boys were congenial, wistful, ruminating about this adulthood that somehow thrust itself upon them, made them see its advent even though now, they were far into its progress already. Joey could relate. Oh, the things you see when they have already been left behind! It was so difficult to sift through meaning and consequence while in the thick of things. But she felt so glad, so relieved, to hear that they were mending. Bit by bit.

"Feeling the adventure yet?" Pacey asked, coming up beside her, adjusting his pace to match her more languid one.

"I wouldn't consider ice-skating a world-shattering adventure," Joey commented, wry, letting his interruption truncate her musings, glad for the digression.

"Ah—but it's after hours, we've traveled out of Boston, and we've got the entire rink all to ourselves," he said, sweeping his arm in an arc at the emptiness.

Joey verged on quipping that he was a few steps and a whole season too late regarding this particular gesture, but he looked so eager and pleased with himself. She didn't have the heart to tell him that Eddie had brought her to an equally empty ice arena—one inhabited by a professional hockey team, no less—several months before already, in Boston. Joey never told _anyone_ about that, not even Bessie, certainly not Pacey. She kept it to herself like some schoolgirl secret. She kept a lot of what she did with That Boy Not From Capeside to herself. Because finally, she _could_.

But then again, this was a secret too. She and Pacey, once again. No guilt this time—just a discreet reconnection kept between the two of them, so much easier to do, with the pull of separating individual lives grabbing cohesiveness from their little Capeside group. And this time, there was no one around to comment and analyze and toss ultimatums. Thankfully. Yet a strong foreboding still lurked, a sense of inexplicable dread—trepidations, unwelcome, that Joey tried to squelch at every turn. Because none of these had anything to do with Pacey. Doubts had never been about him, though before, he thought it wholly did. He had become the thing she was _most_ sure of in her lifetime. And perhaps that was what she was actually most scared of.

Pacey watched Joey's face as her expression opened and shuttered in turns. Sometimes she was off somewhere else; sometimes, she was here—right here—with him. He had his own drifts, he knew—his dad, Dougie, even Dawson—flashes of introspection that alighted amidst his musings throughout this evening, all kept solely to himself. But he and Joey knew each other too well already, and completely bypassed that stage of emerging relationships when conversation gaps and thoughtful silences cause wondering anxiety, force folks to fill in all the empty spaces, even though they just needed to _be_. Within those gaps, a singular person resides, rooted entirely within his or her own experience, the only one privy to those memories and projections, evaluations and plans, hopes and disappointments, full-fledged and exclusive within an individual mind. He was fine to just leave her be when she needed it and she reciprocated. Of course, they scuffled over a long period of time—and in changing dynamics—to get to that point. So it was something hard-forged and well-earned.

Still, Pacey wished he could figure out where she went during those moments. In the car, after the restaurant, those closed-in thoughts _did_ bring anxiety, thrusting that specter of the "mean trick" back into his head. Impulse made him bring her here to this ice rink in Quincy. He was always such a slave to his damned impulses. Pacey had wanted to take Joey out of Boston, to get her completely alone, yet in a comfortable place, a familiar environment. The ice had always been their neutral ground while growing up. While Dawson stuck close to the rink sides of the Capeside Ice Arena, off on his own to conjure up cinematic concoctions he'd be sure to subject them to later on, he and Joey used to settle conflicts, duel to the death, and just unleash their energies, in the middle of the ice.

He was being purposefully obtuse earlier, playing at sudden non-recall about the last time they spent time in a skating rink together. You'd think they would've done the ice thing when they got older—she came and watched his ice hockey tussles at "The Lot" in Southport several times when they were teens—but they had so many other places to explore together once they began seeking out alone time away from any others. Secluded places, confined spaces, intimate nooks and just being in each other's arms. They wrapped themselves tightly into an inextricable package of he-and-she before it all spectacularly unraveled into him-without-her.

So Pacey wanted to bring them back to the beginning, to a point before the baggage began for either of them. When things were simpler. And they were simpler, too.

Now Joey smiled at him, one of many smiles he coaxed out of her this evening; so many he always coaxed out of her, once they got past her perpetual scowl and his more annoying tendencies to put it there. When Pacey decided he preferred her smiles instead, his energies grew decidedly more positive than negative. As did hers, once she became the beneficiary of that soft, tender look of his—the one that made her melt. These discoveries made them more constant excavators for those particular treasures.

Pacey moved in front of Joey and flipped into reverse on his skates so he was before her, but skating backwards. He reached out and took her wrists in his hands, pulling her along faster as he sped up.

"Pace—you're gonna make me fall!" Joey protested, peering, concerned, over his shoulder as he increased the pace.

"Only if you stiffen up and resist. Just let go, Jo," Pacey said, throwing a quick look over his shoulder. But it was the merest glance, almost as if just to humor her. Because he stayed fluid, almost as if he had eyes in the back of his head, or if his skate-blades had memorized the circumference around the sides and edges, and carried him, intuitive, around that rink. "Trust me."

Pacey pulled Joey along like that for one swift rotation and then flipped back to forwards, letting go of one arm but keeping a wrist still enclosed in his grasp, connected, yet not technically holding hands in deference to Rule Number One. Skating side-by-side, he let go of that wrist and they just glided, close, sometimes-touching accompanied by cracking wry lips, sometimes-bumping with tiny amused chuckles.

It was comfortable. Familiar. Really very nice.

"So answer my question now," Joey said, picking up their conversation left in limbo during dinner.

"Question?"

"Are you happy?"

"I _did_ answer. If you recall."

"No—you used an evasive charm maneuver to deflect my aim."

"It worked, didn't it?"

"It postponed the inevitable circling back to it. So now I want the straight line instead of the zig-zag one. Out with it, Witter—happy?"

"Right now?" he asked, bumping up against her, abrupt, to throw her off-balance. She stumbled and then quickly a-righted, throwing him a reproachful look. "Ecstatic," Pacey pronounced, grinning as he glided away.

With a quick burst of inspired speed, she caught up and pushed at him so he slip-slid closer to the wall. He let loose a bark of laughter, and then regained his balance, slipping into his more authoritative pacing once again.

"Are we playing a game of Icy Street Chicken then?" he asked, with an impish glance.

Remembering all the bruises and sprains they visited upon each other as kids when they played _that_ particular game on the ice, Joey shook her head, vigorous.

"I'll not invite such injury willingly, believe me. No Icy Street Chicken."

"But that was one of your more standard opening maneuvers!"

"_You_ started it! And besides, it was merely a snudge!"

A "snudge" was a hybrid reference to the "sneak nudge" maneuver—a stealthy hard nudge to knock a skater off-balance, with intent to send him or her sprawling off his or her feet. Pacey made up the term, after they watched _Monty Python's Holy Grail_—one of Dawson's rare capitulations to Pacey's filmic suggestions—at the Leery house. It was a spin off the line that always had them in hysterics—the Black Knight flailing about with no arms and legs during a sword fight, insisting each mortal wound was "merely a scratch."

"No, _this_ is a snudge," he retorted.

And with a sudden lunge, Pacey plucked Joey off her feet, and for an instant, she was weightless in the air, before he set her roughly onto the skating rink banister. She clutched her legs around his thighs, automatic, to find anchor, gripping the front of his hockey jersey with both hands.

Leaning in close, bending his mouth toward her ear, he murmured, amused, "See—I knocked you right off your feet."

The cool mists of the ice wafting upwards turned sultry. The air around grew crackling hot. Pacey froze into stillness, then drew back to look down at Joey, contemplative. He murmured, "Hey, Jo…"

"Yeah?" she replied, the breath rushing out of her when his gaze grew sexy-lazy.

"You're pretty," he said, his tone low and vibrant, caressing.

Joey shuddered. That _damned_ unexpected!

Pacey's lean face hovered close now, blue eyes dark and intense, staring at her lips, making them tingle and yearn. Yet Joey fought hard against the impulse to throw everything to the winds, to grab his head and pull him down into full surrender. Hers or his—it did not matter. All of her senses and nerves were so absolutely, achingly, _aware_ of him. But Joey refused to be the one to break. They—okay, _she_—had set ground rules for this date, and she was hell-bent on following them.

She. Would. Not. Break.

Pacey observed the struggle in her eyes—hell, sensed it in every bone, joint, and fiber of her being! But he also saw the stubborn pride, the fierce effort to stay true to the boundaries she set. He admired her fortitude, knew it was hard-won. Her battles were always hard-won. And well-fought. Those guidelines she set really weren't about this evening either. It was something more, something she was still reaching for. And perhaps he was still reaching, too.

So Pacey side-stepped them into a compromise, shifting them away from transgressing Rule Number Two, foregoing any lip-to-lip action. He moved closer—yet not too close—and settled his cheek against hers, bringing his arms around her to place his hands on her lower back. He swept light fingery caresses there that scorched right through the cotton fleece of his borrowed sweatshirt to brand her yearning skin beneath. And that was it.

But not for long.

Because after a few aching moments, Joey slid her hands up and over his shoulders, smoothing her palms over their broadness, before traveling up into soft, silky hair. She luxuriated in the feel of it beneath her palms, between her fingers. Twining her arms around his neck, she pressed against him, chest-to-chest, snuggling against his cheek with her own. Her legs tightened around his hips and she crossed them at the ankles. The weight of her interlocking ice skates bonded her around him, embracing his entire being, melding them together. Pacey slid his arms fully around her and pulled her so far into him, he could feel every thrum and shiver and tremble of her body surrounding him. Fluttering warm breath just below her ear, he brushed hot lips at the lobe and then added the slightest of nibbles.

Joey closed her eyes and sighed.

Pacey's answering chuckle traveled all along her length, reverberating. Pulling back to look into her eyes, he twinkled mirth at her. Joey grinned back, saucy. Then, his gaze dropped to her lips and his look turned smoldering again. In spite of herself, she tensed up, so he immediately detangled himself, dropping his arms. Took a large hasty step back.

Sliding back onto the ice, Joey grabbed the arm Pacey automatically extended out to her, intent on regaining her equilibrium. When she tottered, he instinctively grasped both of her elbows, inadvertently bringing her close to him again. On a small laugh, he pushed back on his skates, putting space between them once more. In his mind, Pacey ran haphazard through "next steps" and "lessons learned"—anything to distract him from the overwhelming urge to kiss Joey something awful right now.

"This Rules business is a real bitch," he told her, exasperated.

Pacey could end this stand-off right now—could have at any time during this night, he realized—but if he did, that took the choice right out of Joey's hands. Because, he realized, that was what was plaguing her—the onus of wanting to do this on _her_ terms. Despite the long-simmering history, they both were so different now—changed evolutions of what they once were. Pacey recalled how much she thrived at Worthington, how her vitality ramped up exponentially in that environment. His memory cast back to her face, glowing, when he told her that he'd noticed how much she'd grown, the both of them alone in that dorm hallway last autumn, sharing sentiments and solace before going on their own separate paths. She was so proud of him, and he was so proud of her.

And yet, they still came back around, those diverging paths leading them to this place that was simultaneously recognizable and fresh. So he stood there, looking at her. Just waiting.

Flashing back to an ancient moment transformed anew.

Joey reached out to grasp Pacey's wrist, holding it, re-connecting them. He looked at her hand placed gently there and then up into her soft, shining eyes. Cracking a small acknowledging smile, she started skating again, pulling him along behind her. When he fell into equal pace right by her side, she let her fingers slip further down, touched her fingertip pads against his smooth-rough palm, hesitating for an instant, before shifting to clasp his hand into a loose but firm grasp. They skated around the rink this way, hand-in-hand.

"You just broke Rule Number One, you know," Pacey observed, laconic. "And after I went to such great lengths to keep the sanctity of both One and Number Two intact just now."

"Consider it a freebie," Joey said. "For that enormous Herculean effort on your part."

Pacey laughed, squeezing her hand, affectionate.

Hand-holding comes in many forms, differing varieties, evolving intentions. Palm-to-palm, changing degrees of firmness, from loose clasp to resolute clutch—that's the initial iteration, usually at the beginning stages of growing fondness. Fingers holding fingers, thumbs sliding caresses onto knuckles, dancing finger-pads exploring contours and skin—a more wistful "get-to-know-you-better" phase, an inexorable shift into deeper closeness. And then the interlocking fingers, the most intimate expression of hand-to-hand co-mingling. The fait accompli of "couply contact."

As they glided across the ice together, Joey clasped Pacey's hand more firmly, bringing them palm-to-palm, and then slid her fingers around his, her thumb rubbing his knuckles lightly before the rest of her digits interwove between his, melding fingers together. He turned his head to grin and she smiled back, jaunty. That soft, tender look came upon his face, glowed those deep blue eyes into shimmering sapphire. And just like that, she was melting.

Rule Number Two, obliterated, thus leaving Joey finally broken.

But blissfully so.

XXXXX

_Kiss me once__  
__Well, maybe twice__  
__Oh, it never felt so nice__  
__Break me, take me__  
__Just let me __  
__Feel your love again _

"Thanks for tonight, Pacey," Joey said, once again at the threshold of her dorm room, poised in front of its door.

On the drive back, her hands held one of his in her lap the whole way, occasional removal only for necessary two-handed steering wheel road-negotiating. The atmosphere changed between them after her capitulation on the ice, becoming less tense and more relaxed, yet still charged with all those underlying electric crackles running unchecked between them. Yet Pacey remained stalwart to the rest of The Rules. It was an admirable—if also exasperating—inclination. Because by the time they reached campus, Joey was a quivering mess inside, craving for more than just this partial contact.

"No, thank _you_," Pacey revised, bending down to press a gentle kiss onto her cheek, whispering, "Good night, Miss Potter," into her ear.

"You're really just gonna leave it at that, Mister Witter?" she murmured back, teasing.

"Yup," he said, but added a soft kiss onto the bridge of her nose.

"No last laugh?"

"Nope. Just a real old-fashioned date, made to order, just for you."

The smile she gave him—sweet, grateful, happy—filled Pacey with kid-like glee. Grinning, he pressed a plastic shopping bag—containing her more formal clothes—into her hand. Then, "Catch ya later, Potter," Pacey tossed out, nonchalant, throwing his hand up in a farewell salute as he walked away.

Joey waved back. _Already caught_, she thought, wistful

Entering her dorm room, she tossed the shopping bag onto her bed, and then leaned back against the closed door, a foolish grin stretching her mouth wide. She pictured Pacey strolling out of the building, perhaps whistling a jaunty tune. He was in as good a mood as she was, for sure. But was he also as yearning? He seemed extraordinarily self-contained just now. Taking a deep breath to calm her sudden longings, Joey grew thoughtful. What the hell was she thinking? One rule was already broken—why not another? Especially Rule Number Two. She turned fast, yanking open the door, hastily calculating how much time it might take for Pacey to reach his car in the parking lot and how quickly she could run to catch him. But he was there already, fist raised to knock. Joey stopped and stared at him.

And without saying a word, Pacey stepped in through the doorway. Kicking the door closed with one foot, he neatly turned Joey until she was pressed against the small expanse of wall next to it. Pushing up against her, he slid his large hands through the opening of her coat and onto her slim hips, then lower to pick her up, settling her legs so they were wrapped around his waist. Jostling her upwards, his own body held hers up, pinning her between him and the wall. One hand slipped around her back to steady her, and another came down to cup her bottom, pulling her flush against him. Joey felt his growing hardness and ached to have him inside of her.

"Thought you didn't put out on a first date, Pace," she said, grabbing onto his shoulders, her voice skittery, along with her heartbeat.

"Date was over as soon as you shut the door," he breathed, nuzzling at her neck. "This is officially the second date."

She started to laugh, but then his lips were moving onto hers, hot and hard, swallowing her mirth into a tempest of passion. His tongue slipped in, battling hers, and they were off into that fine erotic dance that both of them had been yearning for. Their mouths melded—hungry and devouring. Joey moved her hands onto his head, gripping it between them, flexing her fingers in and through his hair, feverish. Meanwhile, Pacey's hands roved, desperate to feel her curves and contours, hindered by her thick, bulky salmon coat.

"Jo? This coat? It's cute but a damned nuisance," Pacey muttered against her lips.

He stripped her of the offending article—and with her frenzied assistance, the sweatshirt too. Nonsensically, he flashed on the thought that Joey was starting to stockpile a number of his sweatshirts again already. He'd hold out longer with the hockey jersey this time, glad he left it in the back seat of his BMW. Then he moved his mouth to her throat, working at its most sensitive spots, while his fingers explored further down, smoothing down her ribcage and then coming up to cup a full breast encased in silky-soft satin. Joey moaned, arching her back, and Pacey ground his lean hips, sensual, into the cradle her slender thighs provided around him.

"Pacey…" she breathed, closing her eyes, lost in waves of desire.

"Mhmm," he murmured, his mouth busy with moving down further on her body. Thrusting a solid knee beneath her, he bounced her upwards, just a little higher. Then he palmed one of her breasts from the side, bringing it up to his mouth to cover one sensitive, satin-covered nipple with sealing lips. Pacey suckled that hardened bud through the soft flimsy material and, delirious, Joey's head fell back against the wall. She let out a sexy whimper that inflamed Pacey even further. Then,

"Pace…" Joey breathed, starting to push against him. Not to put up symbolic resistance, but to truly indicate actual stoppage. He was sensitive and well-versed enough to know that very tell-tale difference. So he paused to look at her—_really_ look at her.

"What is it, Jo?" he managed to ask, his breath coming in pants. His blue eyes burned dark and feverish but attentive concern tinged beneath.

She gulped down air, cursing her racing senses. Joey wanted Pacey. So. Very. Badly.

But, "Backwards," she admonished, wobbly in tone but firm in her resolve.

Pacey sighed, a heavy sound. When he stepped back, Joey slid along the length of him until her feet touched the floor. The incidental contact amplified the raging desire coursing through every single one of his nerve-ends. Taking a deep, shaky breath, Pacey ran a hand through his mussed hair and said, "You're right, I know, but you've got me all riled up, Potter." Neither one of them could ignore the very visible evidence of his straining erection against the front of Pacey's sweatpants.

"I know, and I don't want to be a tease," Joey said, apologetic. Then she paused, thinking, and continued. "Okay, I'm gonna do something to help you and I'm sorry, Pace…don't hate me."

"Hate you? Why?"

Joey stomped her heel down on Pacey's foot. Really hard.

"Ow! What was that for?" he squeaked out after a pained yelp, leaning down to rub the assaulted body part.

"You know how when you have a migraine, you're supposed to press hard between the thumb and forefinger in your hand to distract the pain elsewhere? I thought maybe this would do the trick for...down there."

"Uh…thanks, Jo," Pacey gritted out. "I think."

Her gaze went to his sweatpants and found good evidence that indeed, the strategy of pain distraction _was_ fairly effective, after all. Not wholly, but a good partial start.

"I'm just gonna…hop into your shower real quick," Pacey told her, moving toward the bathroom, wincing, slightly limping. "A good cold blast should do the trick."

Joey heard him rustling about and then the hard-rush of the shower, another little yelp and some groaning. A very short time later, he came back out, her dark blue towel wrapped secure around his waist, his dark hair curling-damp all around his head. And Joey just wanted to jump his bones. But she reined herself in and instead, held his sweatshirt out toward him. As Pacey took it from her, a small smirk lifted a corner of his lips, and he reached out with his other hand to pull her near, into that singular aura of heat he always exuded. _Lord, this boy was sexy!_ Joey thought, swallowing involuntarily. Their bodies did not touch, but the clean, fresh scent of him standing so close made her feel hot again. Even a little bit damp-and-bothered as well.

"Thanks," Pacey murmured, wry, and then he released her to go back into the bathroom for a bit, before emerging once again, this time fully-clothed. During the reprieve, Joey hastily changed into her sleeping clothes, so that when Pacey returned, she was wearing those purple-starred pajamas from the Super K-Mart. That granted her an appreciative, heart-stopping grin and he strode over to her, catching her up into a loose goodbye hug.

"So I'm off. Not quite how I imagined this night would turn out," Pacey said, his tone jaunty but his gaze, tender. "But hey—there's always tomorrow, right?"

"Mhmm," Joey agreed, smiling into his eyes. "Always."

She led him to the threshold, pulling the door open. In the doorway, Pacey paused and told her, "I look forward to _forwards_, Jo."

Her grin took over her entire face. "Me too, Pace."

He reached down to squeeze her hand in farewell, dropping a soft kiss onto the tip of her nose. And then finally, resolutely, Pacey took his leave.

After closing the door behind her, Joey turned to go to her bed, to slide beneath those covers to dream of all the delicious things she just bypassed, fortified by the guarantee that she would have more days in the near future to keep exploring them. From the top of her desk, that vintage star-flower pin caught the light, winking at her. _Think of it as a good luck charm to usher in a brighter future. Something old for something new,_ Jack had said.

Above that, on the hanging bulletin board full of scattered images from her past and present, Pacey smiled at her from the deck of the _True Love_, wistful yet confident, from his perch there in that old, beloved photograph. Offering her another route to travel, along one previously tread, yet changed, beckoning anew.

Both old and new, Joey thought. And most definitely one-of-a-kind.

_Break me__  
__I'll let you, ooh I'll let you __  
__Make me__  
__Just let me__  
__Feel your arms again__  
__Just let me__  
__Feel your love again_

_-- _**_Break Me_**_ by Jewel_


	4. Chapter 4

**Aftermath (4)**

_You make my heart happy  
Stay with me awhile  
Don't leave me  
You make my heart happy  
Just for awhile  
Don't leave  
Leave me now  
Don't leave me now_

_-- Fourth stanza from __**My Friend**__ by Annie Palmer_

XXXXX

_Cryptic words meander  
Now there is a song beneath the song  
One day you'll learn  
You'll soon discern its true meaning_

Joey came bearing gifts.

Some kind of executive toy called Newton's Cradle comprising of five round silver balls hung in a row. They swung like pendulums on either side, creating a perpetual motion back and forth—hit one side, initiate the other end. Back and forth. Over and over again.

She also brought the requisite plant. A _Syngonium_ plant to be precise. The type grown as houseplants since at least 1881, closely related to the _philodendron_, tolerant of medium to low light, and not fond of being exposed directly to the sun. Joey got it from the floral shop on the edge of campus that opened at dawn, which she passed every day during her morning run. The punk rocked-out specialist there—a young middling man with a shock of orange-purple hair and a plethora of earrings punched all around on his lobes—imparted that useful bit of information when she asked, "What's the best plant to purchase for an office? Something self-sufficient?"

And so, thus armed, Joey went to Pacey's place of business. Within an hour of striding into his den of wannabe-Wall Street lions, after partaking of some banter and a bit of beauty-meets-the-beast (the beast, being one Rich Rinaldi of the male chauvinist pig variety), she found herself with a temporary job—a Spring Break gig that paid a whole hell of a lot more than simple bar-maiding did. Piece of cake, Joey thought, even though Pacey seemed hesitant, wary, somewhat skeptical.

"It's such a bad idea to mix business with pleasure," he told her later that evening, via telephone.

"Well, we won't," Joey pronounced, her tone brisk as she picked out pinstripes and a pencil-skirt from her closet. "It will be strictly business, and that's that."

"No pleasure at all?" Pacey asked, drawling the question in that voice designed to bring females to their knees. Not that he designed it as such but it really did seem to have that effect.

Joey leaned against the doorway of her closet, sighed and said, "Pacey, let's work on our compartmentalization skills tomorrow, shall we?"

"No problem," he replied, jaunty.

However, they underestimated that ever-present green-eyed monster. The office boys congregated too closely around Joey. One particularly winsome (and strangely orange-tinted) leggy female reporter got entirely too chummy with Pacey. Things got out of hand. Pacey batted away colleagues buzzing around Joey's desk like flies around a succulent roast. Joey stooped to spilling cream (without coffee!) in said reporter's lap while serving her that hot beverage which she would've preferred to fling into her face instead. Soon, Pacey was dictating an apologetic missive (to that undeserving wronged lass!) in an angry tone while Joey sat, livid, on a chair in his office, pen in hand, pad resting on her knees. He glared at her from behind his massive desk. Her jaw clenched and she raised her chin. They spit fire at each other.

Then, standing toe-to-toe, eye-to-eye, the fire sparked something else. In a snap, they were throwing themselves at each other and tumbling onto the office couch. His restless hands dissembled the knot on her head, trailing messy tresses down her back. Her wandering hands pushed away his jacket, which he tore off, obliging. Her fingers pulled at his shirt. He yanked at his tie. Two sets of hands went to roaming, clutching, as their lips, tongues and mouths merged and shifted. Then, Rich Rinaldi's sardonic voice broke into their fevered frenzy.

_I'm, uh, headed out, Witter._

Pacey and Joey froze, turning their heads in unison toward the open doorway where Rich stood, smirking at them.

_Jeez, man. At least I waited a week with mine._

He shook his head and walked away. Pacey looked down at Joey, resigned.

_Pigs_, he stated, matter-of-fact. _We're all pigs._

_Mm-hmm_, Joey responded, her lips bending up into an arch smile. Pacey smothered her concurrence with short, soft kisses.

"Perhaps we should be more discreet," she murmured, gently pushing Pacey off of her.

She stood to walk towards the partially open door. He pulled off his listless tie, tossing it onto the floor and then shed his dress shirt, leaving just his white sleeveless tank-top. Meanwhile, Joey shut the door and turned the lock, effectively barring further unwanted interruptions. While Pacey closed the window shades, blocking any inadvertent views, she unbuttoned the rest of her blouse and let it slide off her arms onto the floor.

"What next, Potter?" Pacey asked, coming to stand in front of Joey.

Now clad only in a black lace bra, that pin-striped skirt and her black heels, she stepped into his arms to kiss him. Tongues tangled into a sensual sliding, their pressing mouths smothering twin groans onto melding lips. Pacey pushed her up against the door, his hardness thrusting heat into the yielding softness of her lower belly. Almost a repeat of the night before, but this time, no ground rules, and Joey wasn't about to insert any.

Today was a different day from yesterday.

Pacey yanked her skirt up over her thighs with impatient fingers, drawing the material up to bunch around her waist. He caressed the expanse of her newly-exposed hips and thighs, smoothing delight with warm gliding palms. Then one of his hands drifted downward to cup between her legs, over the wisp of matching black lace that barely covered her. A teasing finger slid up and down along her dampening slit, making her tingle hot. When Joey mewled her pleasure, Pacey quirked a wry smile against her lips. That finger came up to press against her clit, circling firm and sensuous.

"Oh God, Pace…we really shouldn't," Joey choked out, but she opened up further—she couldn't help herself. The lace was soft yet scratchy and his fingertips were warm, seeking. "Not here…" and then she let out a breathy cry, her head falling back against the door with a small thud as one tip slipped past the scrap of flimsy cover and inserted itself into her sultry, yearning wetness.

"I'm _so_ glad you wear thong panties these days," Pacey said, amusement lacing through his raspy voice as he added another finger, plundering her with deft erotic skill. "And that you don't believe in panty-hose." When he kissed her, his stroking tongue matched the rhythm of those fingers plunging deep within her.

Joey had no words—only soft, strangled whimpers muffled against his mouth. Pacey's fingers left her and his hands moved to her thighs. He lifted her so that both of her legs were up and off the floor. She wrapped them around his waist and then broke their torrid kiss to laugh, breathless, as he bumped her upwards, snaking one arm beneath to hold her up. Circling an arm around his shoulder, she flung her other arm against the door for balance. It slammed hard against the smooth surface, reverberating sound.

Pacey nuzzled her neck, his lips nipping soft at the sensitive skin there. Joey moaned. Loud. _Good Lord! Was anybody still out there on the main floor?_ Stragglers could be lingering, pretending not to notice that the business going on in this particular office was _not_ of the finance kind. Pacey pushed her up further and the door's glossy wood was cool against her heated back as he brought her thighs up onto his shoulders, saddling her onto him.

Her head moved closer to the too-low ceiling and Joey threw her palms up flat to keep from bumping into it. She started to protest her precarious position, but her intended words morphed into a keening moan. Because Pacey pushed aside that meager black lace and his lips and his tongue and—oh God, his fingers again too!—were pressing and suckling and plunging against, through, and into her, bare and exposed and yielding. She was lost to all reason, logical thought, and past any kind of caring.

God! It felt so…_porny_! They were going at it against Pacey's office door and his boss had just left them not too long ago. And she, who was famously skittish and close-mouthed about all matters pertaining to this most intimate of subjects, was trussed up into that corner between ceiling and doorsill, legs slung over Pacey's shoulders, black heeled feet flung out at helpless angles, her pressed against his mouth, while he did the most wicked and delicious things to her! Joey would've laughed if that familiar building up of shivers and shudders weren't already starting to wrack their way through her entire body.

"Pace…I'm going to—"

Joey stopped, her breath hitching hard. She wanted to scream. Instead, she bit down hard onto her lower lip, trying to stifle all the sordid cries that ached to be let out into the air. One hand came down from the ceiling to clutch a fistful of hair on top of his head.

Pacey pulled his mouth away, lifting his head to glance up at her. A whisper of air touched there, cooling her. Their eyes connected and the corner of his lips curved up into a tiny, sexy smile. Lust and tenderness speared through her and Joey gasped, trembling. Curling an arm around one of her thighs, Pacey splayed a hand firmly on her flat stomach, and shifted to provide more solid anchoring against the door, keeping her buttocks resting firm on his shoulders.

"Go ahead," he murmured, catching Joey to him, returning his lips and tongue to their most delightful activity.

And so, she did.

Afterwards, Joey felt like boneless rubber as Pacey let her slide back down to standing on her own two feet, his arms strong around her. His embrace was the only thing keeping her from collapsing into a heap on to the floor.

"Well..." Pacey said, murmuring into her ear as he snuggled against her cheek. "I guess you _can_ mix business with pleasure after all."

"It's the end of the workday," Joey managed to retort, still trying to catch her breath between shallow pants. "We're technically off the clock, Mr. Witter." She took a breath, then leaned back to look into his eyes, adding, "Overtime?"

"Wrong profession, Jo," Pacey said, laughing. He easily blocked her half-hearted attempt to cuff him.

When Pacey's gaze focused on her mouth, Joey ran the tip of her tongue over her slightly swollen lower lip, tasting a trace of salty blood. Leaning down, he pressed his lips soft against hers, taking that lower lip between his. He ran his own tongue over that spot, soothing, and she could taste herself there, mingled in with the flavor of him. After, he hugged her close and Joey rested her cheek against his shoulder while she ran a hand through his soft, mussed hair, smoothing away its recent disarray. Pacey rubbed her back, gentle, and drew his fingers through the ends of her tangled hair, combing them out straight again.

"I should go," Joey said, looking over at the clock on the wall behind Pacey's desk. "My Hell's Kitchen shift starts in fifteen minutes."

"Once again, I'm the last man standing," Pacey told her, wry, wincing a little. His slacks were stretched noticeably outward in front by his rigid erection. "But yeah, you'd better get a move on." He took a step back and dropped his arms.

Joey glanced at the clock again and paused, considering. In truth, she wanted to have Pacey completely inside of her. Though all erotic interplay between them was often incredible, that intimate connection between them when he was inserted deep within and she was cradling him all around, knew no other toppling precedent.

Her eyes strayed over to his desk, focused on that Newton's Cradle on the edge of it. Those silver globes dangled there, completely still. All it needed was one ball to be pulled back and let go to strike, starting that perpetual back-and-forth, for as long as one allowed. _I thought since now you're a true professional and you have an office of your own, that you deserve pointless gadgets to stick on your desk_, she told Pacey earlier. Joey imagined an extension of their activities onto that desktop and those round spheres swinging crazy.

"Don't start something you can't finish, Jo," Pacey said, gruff, watching these thoughts playing out in her preoccupied gaze.

"But that's the thing," Joey said, meeting his fevered stare head on. "I promised myself to always finish what I start these days."

Then she smiled up at him, saucy, before dropping down to her knees on the carpet before him.

"Jo—"

"I'll make this quick, Pace," she said, reaching to unfasten his slacks.

XXXXX

"Hey there, sweetheart! Can I get another round of Buds over here for my pals?!" a tipsy but jolly, middle-aged bald man called out to Joey, much, much later.

"Be right there, Jonah," she tossed out, making her way to the bar with two trays stacked upon one another, a myriad of empty beer mugs populating the tray on top.

Jonah was one of several regulars that frequented Hell's Kitchen after many late nights of work at the law firm up the street. He was part of an amiable group from the same office that often flirted harmlessly with Joey and then left extremely generous tips afterward. Usually, she enjoyed their good-natured bantering—they treated her like a favorite niece and often asked after her studies—but tonight, she was single-mindedly focused. Her concentration was fixed on keeping all drinks refilled at every dining station, all customers promptly served their liquid libation or food of choice, all tabletops wiped down and clean, all chairs straight and tucked under their appropriate tables, and every condiment tray well-stocked. She even went behind the bar to keep glasses and bottles orderly aligned and neatly placed for easier bar-tending access.

As Joey neared said bar, Donny, the bartender on duty, sent her a commiserating smirk. She lifted her chin in weary acknowledgement.

"Want me to take care of 'em?" Donny asked, inclining his head in their direction. "It's about time you took your break."

Joey glanced up at the clock above the bar. It was already ten-thirty. She had gone three-and-a-half hours straight without stopping.

"Sure. Okay. Thanks, Donny," she said, placing the trays on the counter and then removing her waitress-apron.

"No prob," Donny said. He drew a glass of Pepsi from the soda tap and handed it to her with a grin before he started filling a new set of frosted mugs with Budweiser Light.

Joey thanked him and folded her apron into a neat square. Leaning over the bar, she tucked her apron into a short shelf right beneath the counter. Picking up her glass, she started toward the back room. "Be back in fifteen."

"Take twenty. I've got it covered," Donny said. He shouldered his crowded tray of fresh-filled mugs and walked it over to that cheery crowd of blustery lawyers, greeting them with a jaunty grin. A chorus of appreciative and raucous cheers welcomed him.

In the back room, Joey settled onto a small brown sofa and plopped her head back against the cushions. When she closed her eyes, a sudden unease emerged and she sighed, exasperated. The determined busyness of the bar and restaurant were now left outside on the other side of that door. Those stubborn inklings that started as soon as she left Pacey's office building—that needled their way into her consciousness during the T ride from there to here—came sneaking back. She had come completely undone in his office and it was unlike her. Rather, it was unlike the old her, that girl from Capeside, Josephine Lillian Potter. The fact that it was Pacey who went there with her…well, he still had a way of pushing her past her own set guidelines and boundaries.

Not that she was _pushed_ into anything, Joey thought, frowning. She was her own woman, for God's sake, not a victim nor a vessel for someone else's wants and desires. Besides, Pacey had been the first to introduce her to the more carnal pleasures existing between males and females. Being with him in the physical sense always felt elementally _comfortable_. However, that adventurous part of her—the curious impulse to experiment and innovate—though encouraged during her first go-round with Pacey, was honed more singularly in her time since then. Most especially—and recently—with Eddie. Joey had to be honest with herself about that.

In Capeside, her life and loves were preordained—whether by the constrictions of a family that bound her to a prescribed persona or by the proclamations of boys that captured her heart in oppositional ways. Once at Worthington, she had a blank slate upon which to draw herself. That new self unfurled itself, intrepid and captivated, chalking directions fresh and changed. Being with boys completely separate and unrelated to her familiar circle of friends and acquaintances provided a freedom and liberation that she had only just begun to appreciate. And with Eddie, she bypassed so many natural inhibitions throughout their relationship—was so relaxed within that new sphere of loving, freed from history-bound expectations or fears.

And Eddie was a talented and frisky lover. With him, Joey explored past the prior limits of her sexual experience, even utilizing some of the more genteel toys from _Grand Opening_, that wonderful woman-owned adult store in Boston. Edible underwear. One or two erotic tantra cards. A silly but delight-rewarding board game. Granted, these were wink-wink prodding gifts from Audrey and part of her interest in them had to do with a willful desire to _not _think about how Audrey would be using these props herself, elsewhere. Still, it was fun exploring a more varied sensuality with Eddie. For once, she felt in control of her emotions and her passions, allowed herself to enjoy both without the usual subterfuge and angst.

Then why, after this last tryst with Pacey, was she see-sawing between giddy recollection and innate mortification? Joey nibbled at her lower lip, still slightly tender from her futile attempt at keeping some restraint over her responses. Had they really just done those all those things in his _office_? And did she really initiate what she did, just before leaving him? Initiated, and then efficiently brought to a most satisfying conclusion? She could still taste him on her tongue, could feel him too, lingering in her senses. Pacey always could power by her inhibitions, even without trying. And she would breach them herself, when she was with him. This thing between them was always so overwhelming.

Pacey had been with several women since Them. She knew that. One was her own college roommate. Not that Joey held that against him because she had given her blessing to the union, after all. She kept any fresh wounds buried deep inside, not dwelling on them because she had no right to. Instead, she found soothing balm in the deeper friendship she and Pacey forged to replace that all-encompassing passion between them. But when his relationship with Audrey imploded, Joey sensed the underlying resentment and tensions between she and her, knew it was tied more to Pacey than either girl cared to admit. So she focused on her lengthy absences as the culprit instead and Audrey's alcoholic addiction as the problem she needed to fix. Joey put a good face on it, concentrated hard on saving Audrey, and stayed whole-heartedly committed to Eddie. As she told Pacey earlier, she wanted to be a woman who finished everything she started.

Yet Joey was not sure where she and Eddie left off. Despite their recent proclamations of love, she assumed they let each other go during that last cross-country jaunt together, punctuating the end of their tenure with a breath-taking kiss on the beach. But Joey still missed Eddie—missed his jaunty warmth, his snarky asides, his sometimes dark-edged intensity. He could brood with the best of them and he had his own set of self-doubts as well as a tendency to run when things got overwhelming. Joey understood that very well. She was no stranger to skittishness. Eddie had walked away from her first, after all. Up and moved from his Boston apartment after Christmas and disappeared into the wilds of Worcester before she found him again. But Joey did not let Eddie disappear without a reckoning, leaving her lost and wondering. She sought him out, forced them to face one another with honesty and resolution. And that sojourn to California was just her wrangling him into his future, regardless of whether they were together or not.

Eddie sent her an email shortly after she left him in California. When Joey got it, she felt an initial amused affection—trust Eddie, the writer, to contact her first this way, with pen (or keyboard, actually) rather than phone. He told her of his settling in, of having to get accustomed to the laid-back sunny lifestyle of that other coast, of the stories he was working on, the teachers that would be guiding him. Joey responded, told him she was so glad for him, was so excited about this new world opening up for his writing, proclaimed her unceasing faith in his talents and encouraged all of his creative goals. Then she told him not to email her again. Said he should concentrate on his work, leave all thoughts of her behind. Let things sift and settle as they may. Eddie honored her request, respected her wishes and did not contact her again. And that was okay—more than that, it was fine. Perfect. No drama. No angst. It was so mature.

Yet barely extricated from her last romance, she was plunging back into an old one. Despite its almost stealthy beginnings, this thing between her and Pacey, once it hit, did so with the force of a hurricane, sweeping them up into a shared torrid tempest. From its start, when they were teens, their passion would shove all other intentions, considerations and circumstances aside, leaving them alone within their own universe, sometimes safe and soothing, oftentimes a vortex of swirling, unmitigated emotions, whether anger, fear, passion or desire. Their union tilted their whole world off-axis, and the worlds of others as well. It was always so. Especially in Capeside.

But in Boston, they mutated and morphed their interactions into a more benign version since that first elemental coming together. Yet at its base, this thing between them was still so primal, almost undeniable. Completely uncontrollable. Even now, despite their best intentions to go slow, to take some time for re-discovery, to get to know each other again, they were getting overtaken fast by That Thing between them. Joey was just starting to find her feet again and the last thing she needed was to be swept off them.

When she left Eddie in California, she felt morose yet determined to go forward on her own, rejuvenated. Stronger, more resolute, her feet firm on the ground. A balance that stayed true. She was sad, sure, and very disappointed that she and Eddie could not go any further. But her world did not come crashing down when she and Eddie ended things. That was a sign of growth, wasn't it? Not like when she and Dawson confronted each other that one spring and then this last fall, always inflicting old wounds anew. And not like when Pacey shredded her with his unwieldy anger at their senior prom, ripping her heart apart.

Afterwards, at that graduation party, Pacey asked her, _So hypothetically speaking... if I were lucky enough one day to find myself owning a sailboat again, and I were to ask the woman that I love to go sailing with me...would she?_

Once, while they lay under the night-summer stars on the deck of the _True Love_, just off the coast of Georgia, the musky scent of magnolia embracing them as they embraced each other, Pacey told her an ancient Greek legend of the star-crossed lovers, Hero and Leander. His fingers played with hers above pressing palms. She lay in the crook of his arm, cuddled into his warmth. Handsome Leander was banned from courting beautiful Hero, a virginal priestess-in-training for the goddess of love, Aphrodite. Hero lived in seclusion, in a tall tower on the edge of the channel that separated her from the town in which Leander lived. Yet they managed to fall in love, though their destinies were willfully set apart by society's strictures.

So Hero kept a bright lantern of light shining in her window as a steady beacon to intrepid Leander, who swam across the Channel daily to see her. Her lamp was the one star guiding him as he braved those waters to come to her, to spend nightly heaven in her arms. _They say those are all beacons up there_, Pacey said, pointing up to the sky, for every sailor that sails, guiding him safely home. _So do each and every one of those stars have such a sappy story behind them? _Joey asked him, brows raised. He just laughed and then kissed her senseless, and she saw stars elsewhere as that universe coalesced into the infinity of just Her and Him.

When Pacey asked her that question at that party, Joey took it as a sign. One true sign from the many signs they searched for that did not manifest as they wished that final spring. Despite their broken ending, Joey remembered thinking romantic thoughts, still. She believed they had an epic love and this was just lousy timing. The bond between them would remain an everlasting beacon for them to set their sights upon, even though they each were setting sail toward different parts of the wide wide ocean. His looming voyage was more literal than hers, yet separate journeys _did _await them.

Then Pacey exploded her heart all over again in the silence he left behind, when he took off without a word to her after their high school graduation. She never heard from him again until several months later, the night she went to his boat docked out on Boston Harbor. She went to him, despite the fact that he willfully extended his absence. Perhaps he never meant to seek her out. Yet she forgave him. They forgave each other. And they cast the burden of bearing those shining beacons from each other up into the sky instead, let the stars take up that light, scatter it far to illuminate all the corners of darkness once again. Let the light embrace a larger universe beyond just the two of them.

Joey had believed in a bond like that with another, prior to Pacey and beyond him as well. Dawson was a different beacon and their bond, something else entirely. When she was fifteen, she thought that was the real deal, those yearnings and dreams of something sweet and fairy-tale-like and safe. Her world was so tumultuous, so full of sorrow, so maligned, so lonely up until then. And Dawson filled up that space for her, especially while they were growing up. She had wanted so hard to believe in that bond between them. Yet it was too fragile, too easily broken, a brittle bond, requiring expansive stores of energy and too-specific conditions. It was suffocating. She saw this now. But only after she had muddled through the aftermath of a tremendous explosion, once again. Though reconciliation was evolving, bit by bit, these pieces were still swirling about, not just around her, but amidst all three of them.

_That must have been some roll in the hay_, Professor Hetson remarked, that day they discussed the everlasting themes of classical mythology in modern literary works of art. Joey had brought up Hero and Leander in class and initiated a spirited debate about transcendental Platonic love versus its more earthy and visceral counterpart, Passion. Or, in Hetson's crude words, _That inescapable human—or maybe just male!—urge to get laid at any cost. _As she argued with him, her heart beat hard against her chest, her throat aching with each word she threw out. Joey felt compelled to battle back such extreme cynicism from her jaded and sardonic teacher and not a few classmates as well. Yet she had grown cynical about such things too, hadn't she?

"Stop it!" Joey admonished aloud, wanting to quell those insistent doubts gnawing at her. She had learned her lessons and was different now. Pacey was different too. She had to remember that. "Everything will be fine," she told herself firmly.

Getting up off that serviceable brown couch in the break room, Joey picked up her untouched glass of Pepsi—now just a cold watery concoction of sweet syrup—and thrust herself back into the noise and bustle of the bar outside, leaving these troubling meditations behind, for now.

XXXXX

When Pacey entered Hell's Kitchen several hours later, just a touch after 2 a.m., Joey tossed an automatic smile at him as he approached her at the bar, where she was cleaning up and putting things away for the night.

_Hey, Mr. Witter. What can I get you?_

_Oh, nothing, actually,_ he said, a smirk perched on his lips. _I'm kinda partial to this jacket._

Joey ignored the more raunchy intimation behind that statement, continuing without missing a beat, _Not the best of first days, I'll admit._

_No,_ Pacey concurred. _But I'm of the opinion that some worlds should never collide. Plus, how are you ever gonna take me seriously—_ He paused in mid-walk behind a bustling Joey, _I got it,_ he said as he took a few bottles from her and then continued, _—now that you know the guys call me Witless?_

_Yeah, and my whole jealousy act really didn't showcase my best features,_ Joey admitted, walking towards the back game room where the large storage refrigerators were.

_Actually, you know, I kinda liked that part._

Joey's mouth dropped open in faux-shock, though her eyes twinkled. _You were just hoping she and I would wrestle!_

_What kind of man do you take me for?_ Pacey asked, pretending outrage.

_I guess I'm just not used to office combat_, Joey told him. _I'm more of a drunk wrangler._

_That's good news, actually, because I wanted to tell you, don't quit your night job._

Joey quickly put the bottles he handed her into the refrigerator and then turned to face Pacey. _What do you mean?_

_Well, I mean that under no circumstances do I ever want to see you in my place of work again, regardless of how hot you look in pinstripes._

_You're firing me?_

_Yeah, but, I mean, can you think of any better solution?_

_Is this because of the whole coffee thing, Pacey? Because I can make coffee. And I can serve it and everything. I'm nothing if not a professional server._

_It's not about the coffee thing. Okay?_

_Then what's it about?_ Joey asked, placing her hands on her hips.

_Jo, how can you expect me to concentrate if you're around all day?_

Joey knew what Pacey meant, but a devilish streak prompted her to step closer, backing him against the pool table behind. _Am I really that much of a distraction, Pacey? I mean, my desk is outside of your office. You can't even see me._

_But I know you're there_, Pacey countered, his tone almost plaintive. _And I would not have come as far as I have if you were five feet away from me all the time. I just wouldn't. Trust me._

_Really?_ Joey asked wryly, crossing her arms before her. _And why is that?_

Pacey paused and fixed her with a sardonic look. Placing his hands in his pockets, he struck a diffident pose and said, _Okay, now you're just milkin' this for all it's worth, aren't you? _Joey kept her gaze wry and steady, urging him to go on. _Fine,_ he continued, sighing. _I wouldn't have been able to concentrate because every time you're five feet away from me—or twenty-five feet away from me, for that matter—there's really only one thing that I want to do._

_Do tell, _Joey murmured, an amused sparkle lurking within her eyes.

Pacey smirked and then tilted his head, leaning down to touch his lips to hers. Only his lips. He left his hands firmly in his pockets. Joey could tell he intended just a sweet caress. Having had plenty of experience with the extensive range of kisses Pacey was capable of bestowing, she discerned this pretty quickly. But she wanted more.

So she uncrossed her arms and brought them up to embrace him, slipping a hand into his soft, springy hair as she stepped completely into him. His hands came out of his pockets and around to pull her closer. One stole up her back and into her long hair, caressing the back of her neck as the kiss turned passionate. Recalling their rather exposed surroundings, Joey dropped her arms and pushed herself away from him. This was a much more public place than Pacey's office. She hadn't lost _all _of her inhibitions!

When they broke apart, Pacey looked down at her with a mischievous little-boy grin. Joey paused, taking in his endearing expression, her heart skittering crazy inside her. Masking that giddiness with a jaunty tone, she said, _I'm sorry, Mr. Witter. I don't think I can work for you anymore,_ and then turned on her heel to walk away from him, re-gathering her composure as she went back toward the front bar.

Bemused, Pacey yielded. _Fine. Just remember that I fired you,_ he said, following close on her heels.

_No, no, I quit,_ she insisted, putting things away again and toweling down the bar counter. _You have to let me keep my dignity!_

_Okay, but if I fire you, then you get severance pay._

_Oh,_ Joey said, contemplating. _Well, just remember, you'll never find another girl like me._

_I prefer to think of my secretaries as women, but okay._

_Well, enough of that. I think we can both agree that this wasn't the best idea._

_No doubt, _Pacey agreed. My current thinking is that relationships make terrible platforms for multi-tasking.

_Pity, that. I was looking forward to seeing you on a regular basis._

_We'll just have to make a point to make more time, then, won't we?_ Pacey stepped up behind her, his chest a warm wall against her back. He propped his chin onto her shoulder and chuckled. _You almost done here?_

Joey leaned into him, a natural response to his nearness. _I just have to close up the register._

_Well...that's excellent, 'cause, you know, I was thinking... I just happen to live right across the street._

She turned to look at him and their faces were barely an inch apart. _I was thinking that, too._

_Really? What a coincidence,_ Pacey drawled in That. Voice.

_I'll be right there,_ Joey said, her tone breathy and intimate.

Pacey kissed her—just a quick peck—and tossed her an _I'll see you soon_, as he turned and strolled towards the front entrance. He stopped at the threshold, saying, _Hey—you don't think there's any chance you might be willing to wear that secretary's outfit—_

_You had your chance, _she told him, holding her laughter down. It wasn't like they hadn't already done _other _things while she wearing those pinstripes back at his office!

_We'll talk about that later,_ he muttered amiably, right before he exited the building.

As Joey finished up her cleaning, an image of Pacey at five years old came to mind. He stood in front of that unlocked door leading into the butterfly tent in Capeside, the one on loan from the Boston Museum of Natural History. _Go on, I dare you to go in first!_ he challenged as she scowled at him. _I bet you won't because you're a __**girl**_Of course, she went in. And he did too. They always pushed each other's buttons like that. A soft smile hovered on her lips, stretching into a grin. The front door jangled and Joey turned around, the words, "We're closed" poised on her tongue. They stayed unsaid. Because Eddie suddenly stood there, in the flesh, perched on that threshold.

_Hey,_ he said.

_Eddie,_ she replied.

It was silent for a long while before anyone said anything again. Then,

_Eddie...what the hell are you doing here?_ Joey asked.

_Right. Um, so—_

_What happened to California?_ she threw out, interrupting him

_Well, it's still there. You know, I just kinda left for a while._

_And what happened to school?_

_Again, still there. Still standing without me and everything. It's hard to believe, I know,_ Eddie said. _Look, I start in the fall. Everything worked out, Jo. Everything. I mean, I had this interview, right? And I didn't stutter or stumble or throw up or anything. And they loved my writing, which is just totally, like, surreal because no one has ever loved anything I've done. Except for you. Which is why I'm here._

Joey remained quiet, trying to comprehend this newest development. Eddie was _here_.

_I wanted to say thank you,_ he continued. _Because you knew I could do it, and I had no idea. You know, Jo, it's not just because I didn't think I could do it. It's because I didn't see the world that way, you know? As a place where people get second and third and fourth chances to make something of themselves._

Eddie walked closer, coming to stand in front of her. Joey felt a familiar pull toward him and it confused her. She and Pacey shared a kiss in that room beyond this one earlier and he just left her. And now Eddie…

_Or as a place where... you can be a coward, and hurt someone,_ he was saying. _But they still have the decency to see the decency in you. And, Jo, you are the most decent person I know. And you have incredible eyes and the sexiest voice and a smile that breaks my heart. And if I'm gonna be a writer, I need someone like that around. I need you around. What do you say?_

Eddie was looking down at her with those puppy-dog eyes and Joey thought about the impromptu trysts they shared on the road from Boston to Santa Monica. About the way the sunset looked the last time they kissed on that beach in California. Good Lord! She wanted to kiss Eddie right now!

_No, no, _Joey said to Eddie. And to herself.

_Well, that's not the answer that I'm looking for, really,_ he said.

Joey felt her ire start to rise, just a bit. And a little bit of panic too. _Eddie, you walked away,_ she said, trying to push him away a bit with her words.

_I came back,_ Eddie said, keeping his eyes on hers, his heart shining from them.

_I moved on._ Joey saw his startled, pained look before he carefully schooled his expression back to neutral. Her own heart traveled up into her throat.

_Oh, okay. If that's how you feel, then... okay, I understand. I do, _he told her, stumbling a little. He seemed at loose ends then, and said, _I guess I'll be seeing you, Joey._

His awkward acquiescence pricked at her and she felt a stab of guilt.

_I'm sorry,_ she tossed out, resisting the urge to go over to him.

Eddie shrugged, dropping his eyes before turning to walk out of the bar. Joey watched him go, a bit dazed. _He came back,_ she said aloud in a soft voice, letting the sound of those words linger in the air around her.

It was a long while before Joey finished cleaning. After closing up the register and clocking out, she stepped outside and glanced across the street. The light from Pacey's apartment window spilled out, mixing with the glow of the curbside street lamp and the reflected neon magenta of Hell's Kitchen's sign, mottling illuminated mush onto the dark asphalt below. Joey started to walk towards that light, and then slowed, before halting completely.

There was more to that romantic myth of Hero and Leander—a darker side with a grimmer ending. One night, during a war between the winds, the light in that lantern was snuffed out. Leander, lost amidst the winter wet cold and night-darkness, succumbed to the treacherous waves and drowned. Upon seeing his body washed ashore the next morn, Hero cast herself down from her tower and was found later, lying lifeless on the sand next to her dead lover.

When Joey thought back to when Pacey left her that first time, she remembered how desolate she felt, how empty, how destroyed. Did True Love always have to have such dire consequences? Joey stood poised on the curb, staring up at Pacey's window for a very long time, an entire ocean of street between. Finally, she turned and walked down the sidewalk in the opposite direction, toward the T.

XXXXX

_An interesting detachment  
A listless poem of love sincere  
Desire, despair_  
_Overlapping melodies_

Joey had spent the last half-hour in the girls' bathroom of Milton Academy, tending to a hyper-wrought Harley while Pacey counseled a thick-headed Patrick in the boys' bathroom across the way. She and Pacey were at the Milton Academy Semi-Formal, chaperoning a set of snark-laced, angst-ridden teenagers. Two in particular were involved in a familiar sort of battling. The bathroom was the common denominator retreat in every tug-and-pull between the sexes. So it had always been, thus will it ever be so.

Tears wiped clean, accompanying mascara globs rubbed away with soggy-wet bathroom tissue, Harley kept her tongue in check while she listened to Joey impart her small bit of older-girl wisdom. Boys will always break your heart. Just pick yourself up again. Be forthright. Stay honest. Tell him what you feel, what you want, and how you want it. Don't play games. Never play games.

The lesson administered, that blissful young teen promptly abandoned her, happily going off to set her heart's desire aright. Weary, Joey leaned against the sink, half-sitting, half-standing. Despite her no-nonsense dispensing to Harley, she was in the midst of her own flailing. Heart-dramas were not restricted to pubescent romances.

Eddie or Pacey?

It should have been a no-brainer. Eddie returned last night, right when she was about to grab onto a new lifeline, swing back onto a road once traveled before. Yet she took a temporary detour instead, sent Eddie down a side road and left Pacey idling. But both men accepted her abrupt retreat with amiable equanimity. Eddie walked out of the bar without much fuss. Pacey shrugged off her no-show that night. Then he volunteered his services as escort to this particular event. On a Friday night, no less, even though it required a revisiting to historically hostile environs. She and he did not do well at formal dances. Not well at all.

Still, this night was going okay. Things were extremely pleasant, marred only by dramas happening to other people, not her and Pacey. They were older, wiser, more tempered, less reckless. _They _were the adults, supervising the unwieldy passions of these youth surrounding them (though earlier, upon peeking into the boys' bathroom and finding Pacey holding Patrick in a rather comical headlock, she was inclined to perhaps modify that characterization just a bit).

Yet Joey could not stop thinking about Eddie. About a greater unknown that she might be bypassing if she swerved back onto this already-traveled road. About a relationship that enabled her to be a different Joey, a grown-up Joey, a non-Capeside Joey. About a boy that was still mysterious to her and that she was still a mystery to. About her confidence and equilibrium and self-possession when she was with him. About the fact that Eddie was here in Boston instead of back in Santa Monica. He sought her out, despite the fact that she believed she let him go.

Joey shivered, rubbed her palms over her upper arms and crossed her lower arms to cover herself. The bathroom was so cold. Her nipples grew rigid in response. Suddenly, she recalled that evening in Pacey's office, pinned against the door, her softness pressed against his searing hardness. That flash warmed her and this time, when she shivered, it was from something else entirely. Though Pacey was beckoning her toward a familiar road, he was never so predictable. And neither was she, when she was with him.

When this thing between them started, Pacey told her he didn't want their shared history to be held against him. She was trying. She really was. But despite their efforts to slow things down, everything seemed to be happening so fast.

The dance floor outside brought her back to that other dance floor, just two years ago. Pacey accosting her as she shared a dance with a friendly, relaxed Dawson. Yelling at her in front of the entire senior class of Capeside High. Screaming that she made him feel like nothing. Her heart cracking, splintering with every word he spit at her, shattering beneath the onslaught of vitriol he spewed. Dawson, just standing there, bearing quiet witness to a ruthless dismantling. Every classmate listening while a litany of her faults was thrown into stark relief. Pacey was a merciless assassin that night.

And even though they seemed to be moving toward a more benevolent reckoning after that—a reconnection that was bittersweet—he still left her in the end.

When Jack let it slip after graduation that Pacey told Andie about his successful completion of that rocky high school career (the one _she _helped him study for and work through), that he informed her about the job offer on Dean Kubliak's boat (which was put to him at _her _Worthington party), and that he discussed that potential Caribbean sojourn with only her (even though _she_ was the one he sailed into the sunset with just that summer before), Joey felt her whole world tilt and crumble.

He told _Andie _all of these things but said nothing to _her_.

_You never love anyone like you do your first love,_ Andie once told her. No, you don't, Joey thought. This was what she was thinking when she let Dawson kiss her in his bedroom, bringing her full-circle back to a time when she still did not know where those heart-yearnings could lead, when a broken heart was a wished for malady because all she really wanted was a chance to love. And be loved in return.

They were viewing E. T. for the upteenth time, this comforting relic of their childhood bond. Dawson was finally leaving. Pacey was already gone. Joey was broken, desperate for anchor. She needed something, anything, to remind her of that innocent time before everything changed. Before _she _changed.

But change is irrevocable. No one can go back.

Yet Eddie did. Standing on that threshold at the front door of Hell's Kitchen, he told her that he came back. For her.

She flashed to him standing on the side of that road toward California, exposed and vulnerable, telling her he loved her under a bright blue afternoon sky in the middle of nowhere. Joey knew that was a momentous admission. Eddie fought just as hard as she did to keep self-intact, maybe even harder. But there they were, alone, no place to run or hide, traveling together toward parts unknown. She had only ever journeyed with one other boy this way, before.

Eddie and Pacey were so similar. They each had their Daddy issues, inclined toward snarky, held contrary streaks, could be stubborn, and knew just how to hit her triggers. But they were also very different. Every trigger Eddie pushed propelled Joey into new territory, fresh negotiations, and uncharted pathways. She did not really know Eddie at all, found that she did not really know herself, either, and was forced to recalibrate that self with every Eddie-encounter. With Pacey, it was difficult for her to separate this present version from all the other Paceys she had known. Too many layers of him expanded every moment they spent together. Each instant with Pacey was a sedimentary slice of simultaneous excavations—so much to dig through.

Though it really wasn't just about these two boys, was it? Just like it really wasn't about those other two boys, prior. Yet she was faced with a choice, once more.

XXXXX

They found each other outside, on the patio, away from the milling teenagers and their overwrought hormones. It was peaceful out there. Calm. Cool. They exchanged teasing observations of today's youth, and then Pacey smiled at her. He looked so sweet and debonair, in his suit and polished shoes.

_I did think that tonight was quite nice,_ he said. _Quite nice._

_Yes. Quite. Perfect, _Joey agreed. A rush of muffled noise filled her brain—a steady, obscuring static. Make the choice. Make the choice. _It was... it's been a perfect night._

Pacey smiled again, and then leaned closer, as if to kiss her. Joey stepped back, away from him.

_Pace? I can't do this._

_You can't do what?_

He was looking at her, puzzled, yet also suddenly alert. Like that part of him that was always so inextricably linked to her already picked up on her inclinations, already sensed where this was going to go. Joey felt her heartbeat speed up, peppering staccato against her chest. Her next words came out in a rush.

_Even when everything is perfect, being with you doesn't feel right, and I'm sorry. Look, everything tonight-- I mean, tonight was lovely and fun and... you've become this... I mean, this amazing man, but it doesn't... I'm sorry. I don't... I don't feel it. And I can't do this with you._

_Ok, Joey, just slow down for a second, _Pacey was saying now, his hands on her elbows.

_No, Pace,_ Joey said, looking right into his eyes, her own pained. _It's... it's true and... I'm sorry._

_So what, you're scared. Right? You're scared. And so am I, believe me. And I'm scared because I don't know where this thing is going, Jo. As in, I think it could go anywhere. This could be it._

Urgency girded his tone with an anxiety that made Joey's stomach drop. _It won't be,_ she said, her voice firm though her soul trembled. She was really going to do this. She had to. They were so young. Things were happening too fast. She could not do this again.

_How could you possibly know that?_ Pacey continued, with desperate exasperation. _I mean, really. Last week, you're onboard, and now you're just psychically telling me that this could never be something great? You can't possibly know that, because we don't know that, Joey._

_And I'm sorry, _she said, her lungs constricting. _I know that this is such a horrible thing to say—_

_But how? How could you know? _Pacey interrupted. _And when did you make this decision? Tonight? I mean, I thought tonight was going great._

An onslaught of warring emotions froze her, entombing her within a strange numbness. It was not the consequence of no feeling at all, but every feeling rolled up into each other, simultaneous, thus consumed into a mitigating blankness. Too much became nothing at all.

_It was,_ she managed to say, almost an afterthought. _It was great._

_So then when?_ Pacey was clutching at her arms now, his tone pleading. _And don't tell me that you're not scared, because I know that you are. I mean, I've known you too long and seen you push away too many good things to let you push me away right now._ Joey sensed herself cracking beneath all that static in her head, the slow fragmenting of her heart once more. Pacey went on. _My whole life, Joey, my whole life you have been the most beautiful thing in my orbit. And my feelings for you were what proved to me that I could be great. And those feelings were stronger and were wiser and more persistent and more resilient than anything else about me._

Joey couldn't take this. She could not let him go on. _Pacey, stop._

_Jo—_

_Pacey!_

When they were together, Pacey used to do this thing. He would come right up into her face, dip his head, and look direct into her eyes, preventing any attempt of hers to look away or step back. _Don't,_ he would say, his voice firm, commanding. _Stay right here._ He would force her to look at him, into him, so he could look into her. It was like some special x-ray vision. He was doing this now.

_When I was afraid of everything, I was never afraid to love you, and I could love you again. I could. I'm telling you, this could…_

It was too much. She had to tell him. Now.

_Pacey, no. Pacey, stop! Eddie came back. I'm sorry. He came back last night. He came to the bar—_

His hands fell away immediately. That face that had been so naked, so open, so vulnerable just seconds before became a still, cold mask.

_Oh,_ he said, retreating far into himself. _Okay._

A keen slice of pain knifed through her. Joey took a reflexive step toward Pacey. _Look, I'm sorry—_

He shouldered past her, strode back into the building behind them. Left her standing out there. Alone.

XXXXX

Joey stared at that stupid cardboard caricature of a White Knight, right there next to the bleachers where she sat, morose and wanting to vomit. So much for fair maidens and chivalrous rescues and happily-ever-after. She had made her choice but she felt hollow inside, raw and torn. The music drifted about her while young couples danced and swayed. Harley and Patrick looked particularly love-struck in the middle of the dance floor. It was cute. She was glad those kids were working it out. Joey had no idea where Pacey was. Sitting there, on her own, she found herself wallowing within a memory of him at thirteen. It was strange and jarring. Because it was from the day her mother died.

Bessie came into her bedroom at the crack of dawn, shook her awake and with a tear-stained face and shaking voice told her, "She's gone, Joey. We lost Mom." And then her older sister fell into her, sobbing, arms clutching. That was when the static of silence first descended, taking her up into a stoic kind of calm. Except there was no calm. Inside, there was just jumble and chaos and no clarity. It was numbness yet it was not. It was no feeling yet it was all feeling. It just was.

Later that morning, Dawson knocked at her window and Joey let him in. The sunshine of that spring morning could not banish the darkness, so he did not say a word, only came and sat beside her, the both of them leaning against the headboard. His hand stole into her lap and took hers. He held onto that hand and they sat there all day in silence. Bessie came in every so often, bearing more news—"They've taken her away." "There's food in the fridge for you." "I need to go to the funeral home with Dad, I'll be back later."

When twilight hit, a worried Dawson told her he needed to go home and would she like to come with him? She nodded, still dumb, and he kept her hand in his while he led her out to the dock, into her rowboat, only letting go to row them across the creek to his house. He took her hand back up again to lead her in through his front door, up the stairs and into his bedroom. Gale and Mitch looked at her with compassionate eyes but she kept her gaze fixed at nothingness. It was her salvation, that nothingness.

Dawson left her side to go to the kitchen, to get some food that she did not want for herself, that he insisted on bringing up to her. She went to the window, to the ladder that she had always used to come into this room, and climbed down out of it. Took herself away from this place, walked with blind eyes out to the dock, rowed herself home again.

Pacey was there, on her dock, when she returned.

He stood, watchful, while she disembarked and then tied her rowboat to its post. She started to walk back toward her house, not sparing him a glance. He stepped right in front of her. When she tried to side-step him, he side-stepped with her. Kept doing so. Back and forth. Back and forth. She grew angry, went at him with both fists raised, pushed against him as hard as she could.

"Get out of my way!" she screamed, ramming at him with all of her strength.

Pacey fell back at her first onslaught, caught off-guard. Then he grabbed her forearms, partly for his own balance, partly to stop the continued pummeling.

"Stop it!" he yelled. Dipping his head, he looked right into her eyes, those eyes that refused to look into anyone else's eyes all day. He sought out her gaze, refused her retreat, and said again, "Joey—Stop. It."

His eyes were very blue, completely clear, full of care and just a tad bit of irritation. His gaze was direct, unbroken, unwavering. That was when her knees buckled and she fell into him, saying, "I can't. I can't."

He fell with her, holding hard. Mostly out of instinct, perhaps self-preservation. They tumbled onto those weathered planks and she started sobbing, then kicked at him to make him break his embrace. But he did not let go. They lay there together as she emptied all of her grief into his t-shirted chest, soaking him with sorrow. He let her cry, his hands balled into helpless fists, his arms tight all around. They did not speak. Afterwards, when they finally sat up, she hauled off and punched his arm as hard as she could.

"Ow! What the fuck?!" he yelled, rubbing his arm where a dark bruise was already starting to form.

"Don't ever tell anyone about this!" she hissed, before jumping onto her feet to run away from him.

Joey avoided him after that and Pacey kept his distance. Even at her mother's funeral, Pacey did not approach her, only asked about her through Dawson. So that boy served as their mutual axis, commuted between them a tentative accord, even though he had no idea what had occurred between them, only that Joey was grieving and Pacey was sulking and he just wanted them to be a solid triumvirate again. Then one day, a few weeks later, Pacey came up to her to hurl a commonplace insult. She responded, in kind. Everything fell back into place. The natural order of their enmity was restored. They never mentioned that dock encounter between them.

For the longest time, Joey thought that afternoon was an aberration. She rationalized it, telling herself that it could have been anyone at that moment—she had been holding onto herself so hard that day, it just needed that one tiny push for her to let it all go. When she got to her room that night, away from Pacey, away from a bewildered Bessie and Bodie, away from Dawson's frantic phone calls, she told herself that she wished it was Dawson who had been there when she broke. Who held her while she cried. Who comforted her in that darkest time of her need.

It wasn't true. Not then. Not now. Pacey was the one who always brought her comfort, whether she wanted it or not. Even if _he _wanted to bring or not. Pacey was the only one Joey could never keep out of herself. Even though she knew she just did a ruthless thing, had just dashed Pacey's hopes after raising them, Joey felt broken too. Neither one of them were emerging from this unscathed. Inexplicably, she wished he could hold her again. It wasn't fair. She was such a bitch.

Then Pacey was standing over her, holding out his hand. She looked up, slow, almost fearful.

_If memory serves, I owe you a dance, Ms. Potter._

Joey could feel the silence thickening as she put her hand in his and let him lead her to the edge of the dance floor. When they stepped into each other's arms, that silence between them turned into a sledgehammer that swung hard at his heart, shattering it, shattering hers too, because she was the one that was destroying it, destroying the two of them. She was the assassin now. Their bodies swayed together in tune to a primordial shared rhythm, one that transcended the discordance of their new circumstances. But sorrow stiffened them, and they moved woodenly against one another, each lost in a sad trance.

When the song ended, Pacey stepped back, took her hands in his. He dipped his head a little and she looked up into his eyes. Placing her hands, one on top of the other, he gave them a soft squeeze, a wry yet poignant smile pulling at his lips. Then he took away his hands and walked away, leaving Joey on the dance floor, looking down at the floor, sobs lodged hard in her throat. She swallowed them, cried inside, instead.

By the time she pulled up outside Eddie's house in Worcester—having spent six months' worth of good tips on a very expensive, several hour cab ride there—the numbness still had not subsided. Joey got out of the cab and slowly made her way up to the door. She fought with herself for a little bit, wondering if this was a good idea. But she made her choice and now she had to be all in. This was that first step into the decision she had made—the decision to choose an unknown future, to unfetter herself from her past, discover new horizons, freed from any ancient bindings. She knocked on the door and suddenly, Eddie was there. Real. Breathing. Looking at her with a dawning shine in his eyes.

_You're probably wondering what the hell I'm doing here,_ Joey said, voicing her own thoughts to herself aloud.

Eddie didn't say anything, merely stepped out to join her on the porch. And then Joey launched into his arms, kissing him passionately. He pulled her closer, deepening that kiss.

Breaking away, Joey chuckled. _Hi,_ she said, her gaze mirroring the affection she saw in his.

_Hi,_ he replied, grinning. Then he hugged her and Joey melted into him, grabbing onto the comfort he offered her.

Yet as she nestled her chin onto Eddie's shoulder, settled into his arms banded around her, all she could see were two very blue eyes over an offered hand, asking for one last dance. Even after she broke his heart—and hers too—Pacey came back.

His face lingered there, still, on her mind.

_And it's not a love, it's not a love  
It's not a love, it's not a love song  
It's not a love, it's not a love, it's not a love song  
It's not a love, it's not a love, it's not a love song_

XXXXX

_Oh now the roots are reminiscing  
Recurring dreams of minor chords  
Metered time  
Muted chimes find the beat_

Stalwart line of silver globes, that Newton's Cradle on the edge of Pacey's desk. Sterling still.

He grimaced.

Nonsensical office toy, a pesky reminder of things he wished he could more easily forget. Things that happened by the couch…and over by that office door…

He winced.

One more document on top of another. One less box to check on an extended list of "To-Dos." One extra client added to a stable of "go-to" guys. Phone headset. On. Off. On again. Shift from tone to tone, person-to-person.

Mottled sunlight yielding into slurry twilight, flashes glare onto those silver orbs. Heavy worlds strung at the end of rigid nooses.

Just past the regular quitting time of five o'clock, the phone rang again. Another click. "Hello?" Jen, subdued, began with small talk. Followed by silence. And then…

Pacey leaned back in his office chair and rubbed his face with his hand as he absorbed the news. His stomach dropped upon hearing the word "cancer," then "Grams." Lillian Potter's gaunt face hovered in his mind—a sweet, sad skeleton. Wistful, indulgent smile. No more.

"I don't know what I'm supposed to do," Jen said, her voice terribly small.

"Did you tell C. J.?" Pacey asked, words edging past the sudden obstacle in his throat.

"No. I—I broke up with him about an hour ago."

"What are you talking about? He loves you, right?"

"I think so."

"And you love him?" When Jen paused, Pacey inserted a "yes." "What's your deal, Lindley?"

"I just can't handle this—us—right now."

_Pace? I can't do this._

_You can't do what?_

"That's the most ridiculous thing I've heard come out of your mouth in ages." Then, "Well, the most ridiculous thing that actually matters, anyway," he revised. "I mean, even though Pretty Boy and I didn't get off to the best start—"

"I'd say punching him at a No Doubt concert counts as a _horrendous_ start," Jen said.

"Still, I actually think C. J.'s a good guy. If you let him, he can really be there for you."

"Pace, I know I shouldn't shut him out," Jen told him, "but I feel like in order for me to have a good, stable relationship, _I _need to be healthy. _Me_. And I'm not, Pace. I'm really not. I'm completely riddled with imperfections."

"You say that like it's a bad thing. No one's perfect, Jen."

_Even when everything is perfect, being with you doesn't feel right, and I'm sorry._

"Look, you know I've never been one to lean on a guy when something bad is happening in my life. In fact, I'm much better solo when it comes to trials and tribulations."

"But you've always had us. Especially Jack. And me."

"That's different. You guys are _friends_. I love you both a lot, but…well, you're not my whole world. No offense."

"None taken. Then again, a guy _shouldn't_ be your whole world, right?"

"No, and this is gonna sound weird but…I think I love C.J. _too_ much."

_I'm sorry. I don't... I don't feel it. And I can't do this with you._

"That's stupid," Pacey threw out, before he could help himself.

"Gee thanks, Pace, for being so non-judgemental."

"Sorry," he replied, "But can you explain?"

"Right now, Grams really needs me. I can't spare any energy to fix myself right now."

"But why do you have to fix yourself at all?" Pacey asked. "Why can't you two just work through this together? That's what love is supposed to be, right? Sticking tight through thick and thin? Watching each other's back?"

"That's the ideal, sure, Dr. Phil," Jen retorted. "But I'm so screwed up, Pace! The one person who finally made me feel secure and balanced on my own two feet is Grams." Her voice broke slightly. "She was the first person who loved me, unconditionally. I mean, yeah, she had rules. And, yeah, she has certain notions of womanhood and values and ethics. But honestly? I don't know what I'd do without her. I don't even want to think about it."

_So what, you're scared. Right? You're scared. And so am I, believe me. And I'm scared because I don't know where this thing is going, Jo. As in, I think it could go anywhere. This could be it._

"Jen—what are you afraid of?"

"When you love someone too much, it's hard not to lose yourself in it. I can't afford to be lost right now. I just can't."

"You don't want to take that risk?"

"It's not really about not wanting to take a risk. And this isn't just about him. It's not really about me, either."

_And don't tell me that you're not scared, because I know that you are. I mean, I've known you too long and seen you push away too many good things to let you push me away right now._

"I disagree. I think it has everything to do with you. And I don't mean that negatively. You know that Grams would be the first one to tell you not to cut C.J. out of your life."

"Well, she'd be a hypocrite then because she's more stubborn than I am. She's already pushed C.J.'s Uncle Bill away."

"Like grand-mother, like grand-daughter."

"Irony. That's a new concept."

"Jen, do you think you're scared because you think that maybe C.J.'s The One?"

_When I was afraid of everything, I was never afraid to love you, and I could love you again. I could._

"I don't know," Jen said. "I can't tell you if C. J. is The One or not. All I know is that out of anyone I have ever been with, he's the most sensitive, the most compassionate, and the most there."

"So the problem is…?"

"I don't think I'm ready. And I don't know how to be ready. I need to be there—really there—for Grams. I can't love _both_ of them properly. I just can't."

_But how? How could you know?_

"Why does it have to be 'all or nothing'?" Frustration gnawed at Pacey. "You might surprise yourself."

"Pacey, I can't think about this right now," Jen said, mirroring his agitation and then deflecting him. "I have to host a gig on-campus tonight."

"A gig?"

"Adam Carolla and Dr. Drew Pinsky are in town to do a special show at Boston Bay."

"Adam Carolla and Dr. Drew from _Lovelines_?"

"Yeah. They're doing some college perspectives thing. It's a fundraiser for the counseling center." Then Jen said, "Pace—don't tell anyone, okay? About Grams or about me and C. J." Sh said this as if she was in a sudden rush, as if she was trying to plug a hole in a wall, just discovered. No more leaks.

"Okay, but before I drop this completely, just know that I'm here for you and Grams, whatever you need, whenever you need it."

A soft sigh followed. Jen sounded less tense when she spoke again. "Thanks, Pace. So, do you wanna come tonight?"

"Sorry—gotta pass. I'm not even halfway through all the work I should've had done yesterday." Pacey looked out the window, at his decidedly mundane view. Just a billboard for a local real estate agent, proclaiming his grinning presence 50 feet high: _For the best deals around, circle back to Rob Randall!_

"Everyone's coming tonight, including Audrey," Jen said. "She's back, you know. From rehab."

Audrey. Sobbing against a car on a cool-brisk Halloween night while he stood helpless, stricken, equal parts chagrined and sorrowed. Dressed like fucking Billy Idol, his face red-blotched from the slap just administered across his cheek. He deserved it. He could not love her enough to save her. In the end, he did not love her at all. But he still cared. Deeply.

"How is she?"

"I think she's okay," Jen replied. "She seems much better. Jack bumped into her when he went to go see Joey at Worthington this morning."

Joey. That night at Milton Academy, she looked sunken into her lemon chiffon dress, forlorn, alone beneath the overbearing, glittery façade of that silver-white knight mascot. Standing silent, he watched her, his initial anger dissipating at the memory of a sixteen-year-old girl perched at the edge of her dock, rejected and lost. Empathy welled up, so when he held out his hand and asked her to dance, Pacey yielded to that familiar impulse to pull Joey out of herself, save her from that past, bring her back into the present. Even though he, too, was drowning.

"And apparently while we were all gone on Spring Break," Jen said, "Eddie came back to Boston. Were you around when _that _happened?"

Pacey's gut clenched, but his tone remained even. "Not really. I've been working a lot. You know how it is."

"Jack told me she went out to Worcester last Friday night after some semi-formal she had to chaperone for Harley," Jen continued. "Guess she and Eddie made up and now they're very much an on-again item."

Joey went to Eddie right after the semi-formal? Pacey hadn't talked to Joey since that night. He thought about calling, but what was the point? Their last parting was a sad, shared acknowledgement that this was how it had to be—separate paths into the future. So noble. But then she went _straight _to Eddie after he left her? He wasn't sure how he felt about that. Certainly _not _noble.

"Pacey?"

"Yeah," he said, snapping back into the conversation. "Still here."

"Jack told me they are driving Audrey crazy with all their talk about sex which they are apparently not having."

"What?" Pacey asked, sitting up straight.

"Audrey says Eddie keeps begging for sex and Joey's not giving him any. None of my business, I know. Maybe they're just taking their time. Reconnecting and all that. They're both coming tonight."

Pacey cursed the relief that flooded through him. Whether it was male ego or some stupid sense of heartsick hope, he couldn't tell. Who the fuck cares if they were having sex? Eddie was her boyfriend, for God's sake! He certainly wasn't going to go all Dawson on her, now that Joey had made her choice. But still, it felt like a small reprieve. Illogical, perhaps, but there it was.

"Who knows? Maybe the show will help 'em out a little, you know?" Pacey tossed out, more casual than he felt. _Yeah right,_ he told himself, _like Joey would ever air her sexual laundry out in public that way._ Some things, he was pretty sure about, and that was one of them.

"I doubt they'll hold off for much longer. They always struck me as rather…uh…physical, if you get my drift," Jen said. Before he could formulate an apt reply, Pacey heard a car horn honking in the background. "Jack's here. We're meeting David at the show. I'll catch ya later?"

"Sure," Pacey said. "And Jen, about that other thing—"

"I know who to call," Jen interrupted. "Thanks, Pace."

"Love ya, Lindley."

"Right back at ya."

After hanging up, Pacey took the phone headset off and tossed it onto his desk. Sitting forward, he put his forehead into his hands, leaning onto his elbows. In the quiet, his thoughts raced toward memories, gaudy and belligerent. These four walls mocked him; that door especially. He could not get out of his mind Joey, pressed against him while he buried his mouth into her. Savoring her. The sublime sounds of her moans. The hard thumps of her body at angles hitting against the door and the wall. Then, finally, down on her knees before him.

Lips, tongue and mouth wrapping him into insane pleasure as he stood, half-dazed, both hands shot straight out, palms flat against the warm wood where her writhing back had recently heated it.

Collapsing onto his knees after, flinging his arms around her, exhausted and happy.

Tumbling onto the carpet, a mess of limbs and maladjusted clothes.

He kissed her cheek, then her nose, and pressed his forehead against hers. She wrinkled her nose at him, bumped his chin, and smiled with lights in her eyes.

They laughed.

Pacey flashed back to their senior year in high school, right after the Leerys' Christmas party. They left early so that he could deliver on a sensual promise he whispered into her ear, while embracing her from behind at the tall, twinkling Christmas tree. Afterwards, in the front seat of his family car, Joey lay sprawled, head resting against the passenger door, one bare foot propped up onto the headrest of the driver's seat, the other foot resting on the dashboard, her legs limp and spread apart, thighs held firm in his cupping palms.

The sexy mess of her dark hair fell down past her neck, tousled, with matted strands all about her head. That elegant Audrey Hepburn dress bunched into a bulky circumference around her waist. Her panties—a damp twist of lavender silk—were tossed beneath the brake pedal, along with her spindly heels, the first casualties of their fevered tussling. Pacey was stripped down to just his slacks, his blazer and tie tossed carelessly into the back seat. His sole dress shirt—missing a few buttons in his haste to tear it off—lay pooled on the floor beneath the steering wheel. He still wore his shoes and socks.

When Pacey raised his face to look into Joey's eyes that long-ago night, he found them drowsy with exploded desire and tenderness. Suddenly, something different rose up from within those depths, something wanting and fierce. She sat up, bringing her own legs down, and pushed him back, until he was pressed against the driver's side door. Pulling at his legs until they were brought 'round, she pulled off his shoes, his socks, his slacks, throwing them all into the back seat. Then she reached for that thick, hard length protruding beneath his thin cotton boxers.

That previous summer at sea, and in all the months since, Joey had slowly evolved from timid fumbler to tentative explorer to deft pleasurer, never moving past just using her hand. Pacey never asked for more than that. He was pleased that she progressed herself quite capably, on her own terms. But on that night, she pulled him from his underwear and started to lower her lips toward that aching, throbbing tip. He laid a halting hand on her shoulder, shook his head at her in silent protest.

_I have to admit, for a guy, it's pretty easy,_ he once told her, as they cuddled on the deck of the _True Love_, under yet another warm night sky. _You could stick it in a vacuum cleaner and I could get off,_ he joked, letting her know that it was not a prerequisite to their being together. That it would never be anything he would need her to do, even though he would always want it. He was a guy, after all. But he did not tell her that, ever.

Joey knocked his hand away. With her fist holding him upright, she paused, and after a quick glance up to meet his surprised gaze, she leaned down to kiss the tip of him with fluttery-soft lips. _Tell me how to do this,_ she whispered. When the moist warmth of her mouth engulfed him, Pacey clenched his hands into tight fists on either side of her head, keeping them anchored at his sides, willing himself not to push nor direct her. Except with words. _Watch your teeth...Okay, suck on it—but not too much…Vary it a bit, yes, just like that. _At one point, delirious, he proclaimed, _You're doing so great, sweetie!_ and he clamped his fingers around her shoulders, squeezing his grateful affection.

Then Joey found her rhythm, adding her own flourishes, fluttering her tongue all around, swirling, while he throbbed, ecstatic, in her mouth. His hips twitched, abrupt, thrusting upward, as he lay helpless, groaning, _Oh my God!_ He slammed his head hard against the front door latch and clutched around Joey's waist with one spasmodic leg.

When she stopped to ask, _Are you all right?_ Pacey nodded his sore head vigorously—he was so close! And Joey actually smiled at him, spearing something more powerful through him, deeper than just lust. As she lowered her lips back down, she laced the fingers of her free hand through one of his—the hand not buried into her tangled hair—and squeezed tight. Not too long afterwards, he disengaged that hand from her grip to snatch his dress shirt from the floor, choking out, _Joey, stop…_ while pushing gently at her head. She released him so he could come into his shirt.

When Pacey lay spent, Joey stroked his hip, reassuring. Then he sat up to hug her, happy, telling her over and over again how proud he was of her, how wonderful she was. Snuggling against him, she kissed the sensitive hollow behind his ear.

_Was that okay?_ she asked, almost shy, holding him tight.

Pacey leaned back to look at her. Rumpled and messy, her hair in disarray, she was a complete mess. But her gaze was soft, questioning. Trusting. He felt completely overcome in that moment.

_I love you so much,_ Pacey told her.

_Because I gave you a blow job?_ Joey asked him, teasing, but also a bit uncertain, as if perhaps the sex act was conditional upon the declaration.

He brought his palm up to her cheek, touched his forehead to hers. _Because of you,_ he said.

The pure joy in her smile devastated him.

Years later, Joey was different—more practiced and aggressive. They were older, less inhibited, more experienced. She was fast, efficient, and sure. There were things she did with her hands…her fingers too…and she spread her sensual ministrations to a wider circumference past just that hard, rigid length, caressing and heating his skin adjacent, tingling his most sensitive intimate parts. Yet it was still so incredible. The feel of her mouth, warm and suckling, was a strange comfort even through the wracking desire. No instructions needed. No shirt required. It was unexpected. It was a revelation. It was bliss.

It was _killing_ him.

Because Joey had learned that from someone else.

_Guess she and Eddie made up that night and now they're very much an on-again item... I doubt they'll hold off for much longer. They always struck me as rather…uh…physical, if you get my drift…_

A low throb started to work its way into his temples. Pacey pulled his top drawer open to seek out the bottle of Extra-Strength Tylenol that he kept there for computer-glare-induced headaches. He popped off the cap and shook two tablets into his palm. Tossing them into his mouth, he gulped a swig of his luke-warm coffee to wash them down.

That _fucking _Eddie Guy.

XXXXX

_And in the pulse there lies conviction  
A steady push and pull routine  
The cymbals swell  
High notes flail into reach_

Pacey stared down at the papers in his hand. Dawson Leery's signature scrawled itself—big and bold—across every requisite line in that legally-binding document. Next to it was a check, slightly crinkled, with several fat zeroes written upon it after a lonely solid number. The check was a surprisingly austere gray with a stark, no-nonsense design. For a dreamer ready to risk it all, you'd think it would have a more quirky background—a neon-bright color, surfeit of rainbows, sleeping Snoopy, juggling clowns.

_I'm serious, man. I just... I made a decision to trust my instincts, and ever since I did, everything's been falling into place. I wrote 20 pages last night. I could barely type fast enough to keep up with the ideas that were coming, and I can't wait to go home and write more. I mean, honestly, the only thing holding all this up right now is you._

Dawson corralled him this morning in his office and implored him to help finance that one all-encompassing dream. The dream Dawson had been working toward since the first time his precocious twelve-year-old self directed Pacey and Joey to enact Lancelot and Guinevere to Dawson's King Arthur in the Leery backyard, while the SONY home video camera he filched from his parents' closet ran uninhibited on its tripod, recording them.

_It's all the money I saved working with Todd. I need you to make it grow…Transform that into a respectable budget for an indie film. Coming of age story. No special effects, although I might need a slumming A-list actor looking for some industry credit. You up for it?_

Pacey thought back to when he stood on the Leery lawn with Dawson not even two weeks ago in Capeside. When he carelessly made that stupid offer to help finance his erstwhile best friend's film aspirations. Dawson deflected that impulsive proposition—smartly so—and then invited him indoors for coffee. They made merry, reminisced about childhood, acknowledged an ill-fitting adulthood, reveled in the renewed warmth surrounding them, having come in from that cold outside. And finally, That Past stood poised to finally step away from them. Leave them be. Let them go.

_I haven't exactly hammered out my mixing friends and business policy yet,_ Pacey told Dawson.

_Pace, I think we've been through enough together that we don't have to worry about it getting awkward,_ Dawson reassured him.

_Well, yes, we've certainly been through awkward, but we've never been through "I'm broke and it's all your fault."_

_I'm not worried. I know this will sound disgustingly L.A. of me, but this whole project just has a really good vibe._

_Because I'm your friend... I'm never gonna tell anybody that you just used the word "vibe"._

Despite Pacey's trepidations, they had negotiated a done deal. All the "I's" were dotted. Every "T" was crossed.

_You're my Kenickie,_ Dawson told him once, when they were thirteen, safeguarding their fort from any interlopers. Especially girls. Particularly Joey.

They had just watched **Grease** on video the night before. Not one for musicals, Pacey had protested vehemently at the video store when Dawson picked it out. _It's a classic,_ that blond boy insisted.

Once ensconced on Dawson's bed with a bowl of popcorn and a Pepsi in front of the TV (after a well-timed and purposeful shove that found Joey sprawled and scowling on the floor while Dawson smothered a chuckle), Pacey actually found himself enjoying the movie a great deal. Once he realized that Danny and Kenickie were real _guy_ guys (despite Danny's kind of sissy falsetto and ending arm-thrust into the air on those bleachers after "Summer Nights"). And that "Greased Lightnin" was a kick-ass, rollicking number.

Plus, that game of car-chicken was singularly cool.

Pacey liked that Danny asked Kenickie to be his "second"—the best friend that would take up the reins, life or death, should anything go wrong. Kenickie was more than just a sidekick. He was Danny's loyal right-hand man and his equal in skills.

In his own family, Pacey was such an after-thought. Doug was the Favored Son, the promising male heir to the Witter Police Enforcement Throne. The gaggle of sisters in-between them took turns throughout their childhood dressing up the boy-baby of the family in a myriad of girl-clothes—all hand-me-downs—for their amusements. And Doug would snicker and sneer from his lofty perch as Eldest Boy, calling Pacey, "Patsy," "Poppy," or "Stacey," until Pacey was old enough to answer with equal sarcasm, chipping away at Doug's supposed manhood with sardonic verbal assaults, even though for awhile, it was like a Chihuahua having a go at a Great Dane.

But then, Pacey found a different balance to offset these tilted scales, throwing in with dreamy Dawson Leery and that scrappy Josephine Potter instead. He always had a significant role in every imagined movie they cast, always held his own to equalize the shifting scales between the three of them. Pacey liked being significant, liked being someone's Second, when all he had ever known was Last and Unimportant.

_Speaking as your Kenickie,_ Pacey told Dawson, _I think you're in need of some blonde Sandy-type, D-Man. Every hero needs a girl._

_Know of any?_ Dawson asked, laconic, leaning back against the fort wall.

After wracking his brain, Pacey suggested, _Maybe someone will blow into town and turn your world upside-down. _They had known every girl in Capeside since diapers and nobody their age was both blonde and exciting. There were the older girls, sure—Kristy Livingstone automatically came to mind—but Pacey dared not think beyond the seventh grade. No possible chance there.

_Sidekicks have girls too. You need a Rizzo—some dark-haired crackerjack that will challenge and rebuke you at every turn,_ Dawson pronounced. After a short silence, he started to venture forth with, _We __**do**__ know someone dark-haired and snappy—_

_Don't you __**dare**_ Pacey interrupted, glaring at him.

_I'm just saying…_ his amused friend prompted, eyes flashing mirth.

_Hell will go Arctic before __**that**__ ever happens!_

You never know— 

_D, seriously? Shut the fuck up._

Yet Pacey _did_ get his dark-haired Rizzo and then some. Then she morphed into Sandy and he became Danny. Or did he? And there was the entrance of the blonde Sandy who was more Rizzo, who blew into town and really _did _turn their world upside-down. These roles merged and transformed, but not in any of the ways they might have imagined back then. The Thunder Road car race became a boat race instead, with Danny versus Kenickie—the hero battling the right-hand man. But who was the hero and who was the right-hand man by then? This sidekick gig was surely a dangerous business.

Looking back, Pacey wondered why he never questioned this role he was assigned. He used to be so proud to wear the badge of Second, was happy to be best supporting actor to Dawson's lead. It was so much better than being just a bit part in the caustic Witter Family, where he had no weighty lines, was an always expendable extra. Yet even back then, Pacey was only the Best Second when it was he and Dawson alone, or the three of them together, with Joey. For a time, he moved away from that role, taking up a different partner-in-crime in Will Krudsky . And whenever Dawson wasn't around, Pacey had Joey. She would shift into her own specific role around Dawson—The Golden Boy's Girl Friday, completely platonic, until matters of the heart intruded, perplexing all.

Jen saw it first, then threw it out there in front of him, unwilling though he was to see it.

_Can I ask you something, Pacey? What is it about her?_ Jen asked him, that night at Starlight Dance Studios.

_What?_

_She's obviously got something that makes boys in emotional turmoil just flock to her._

_Come again?_

_Come on, Dawson's the same way. Whatever small problem got to him, he went straight to Joey._

_So who else would you have me talk to?_

_Dawson. Why couldn't you just go to Dawson? Unless, of course, you don't feel comfortable talking to him about your sex life, considering..._

_Considering what?_

_That your current girl Friday used to be his._

No, real-life was not the movies, no matter how much they wanted it to be. Or rather, no matter how much Dawson wanted it to be. But that wasn't fair—he and Joey once wanted those same things. When they were kids. Yet as they grew up, they each started imagining different things—especially him. These divergences bypassed any past blueprints, crushed any prior models, swept away all templates, previously set. Just like how their old fort was swept away, taking their blood-brother bond along with it, right around the time Kenickie veered off-script and kissed Sandy by the side of the road coming back into Capeside.

But this morning, Dawson slapped a check onto his desk and entreated him to revive a dream. A dream that they used to share—the three of them, The Capeside Triumvirate. That they stopped sharing so very long ago, their preordained ties officially sundered when Dawson closed his door to him and Joey, standing together, hands locked in guilty solidarity on his moonlit lawn, that one fateful spring.

Pacey hated the notion of a singular moment that inflicted itself on a lifetime, let alone _three_. It was a silly imagining, the idea of one Fateful twist, one Big Event that had effects into infinity. Especially when it was so easy to lose people in the blink of an eye, like with Mitch Leery's sudden car accident. Or within the slow crawl of a strangely finite eternity, as was the case with Lillian Potter's lingering demise. And now, with the burgeoning of Grams' own struggle with ruthless mortality, these things seemed so petty, so small. No, it should never, ever matter.

But it did.

So here, now, was a window opening, beyond that door that had already closed.

Dawson's check on Pacey's desk.

And a piece of paper with both of their signatures on it.

With Joey nowhere in-between.

XXXXX

_And it's not a love, it's not a love  
It's not a love, it's not a love song  
It's not a love, it's not a love, it's not a love song  
It's not a love, it's not a love, it's not a love song_

In the end, it was all just a mean trick, after all.

Jack phoned that evening to tell him that he'd be around the apartment much more often again, that David wouldn't be coming 'round anymore. When Pacey inquired as to why, Jack told him in terse tones that they broke up.

"You guys broke up over a stupid seat at a show?"

But it was more than that, apparently, and Jack let loose his own recounting of his reasons, his rationalizations of how he wasn't ready after all, maybe it was just a smaller symptom of something larger, and better now then later. Although he could not quite envision what a "later" could possibly look like right now.

When Pacey pointed that out, with some mildly amused reproof, Jack merely bit his head off and said, uncharitably, _Well, I don't see you out there getting some these days, so really, you have no right to talk._ Which was uncharacteristically rude and boorish of Jack. Pacey was all set to let that strange lapse pass, in light of Jack's current bitterness over that very recent break-up and because Jack was still in the dark about Grams, and this would have to be the lesser of two wrongs, once Jen apprised him of that.

But then, Jack had to add, right before signing off on their conversation, _Well, at least Joey's finally getting some again. And it's about fucking time._

The offices were empty and it was nearing midnight when the phone rang again. It was the reporter, Sadia Shaw, and she told him she was downstairs, in front of the building, just passing by. Rich told her that he was a late worker, so she thought she would check to see if he was there, to do some follow-up for the article. But her sultry tone intimated much more. So Pacey told the guard to let her upstairs and obligingly took her up on her unspoken offer.

Pacey fucked her all over his office.

At the couch. Against the door. On the floor. In his chair.

At his desk, Pacey took her from behind, hard and rough, her black curling locks wound tight around his fist as he pulled back on her head, uncaring if he hurt her or not. But she screamed her pleasure, begged him "Harder! Harder!" and he pounded into her, ruthless, at times lifting her right off her tiptoes. Her toenails were painted a deep dark red. Like blood. It was a funny thing to remember, but he noticed them when they were on the floor and his head was between her legs, adroitly tonguing her pussy while she efficiently suctioned his dick at the opposite end. Those toes matched her fingernails that were now clawing at the edges of his desk. The silver orbs on that Newton's Cradle swung maniacally and it tipped over, sliding across the smooth surface, incremental, at each savage thrust. Pacey leaned forward and swept it off the desk with his arm. It crashed against the wall and crumpled to the floor. Sadia laughed before launching into a series of ever-loudening "oh, oh, oh!s" and "Oh my God!s" and "Fuck! Fuck! Fuck!s." Pacey slammed his release into her, groaning, and she came soon after, yelping her own shuddering orgasm.

Afterwards, they both collapsed onto his desk, sweaty and exhausted, their bodies depleted. Dawn was peeking into the office when Sadia finally got dressed, wrote her home phone number down onto a Post-It, and slipped it into Pacey's palm. He leaned down to kiss her, tasting both of them on her lips, in her mouth, then told her to take the _Syngonium _plant home as a token of his appreciation for her surfeit of skills. She smiled, weary, and thanked him, sardonic, as she took the plant into her arms. He grinned, a bit wolfish, when he noticed how stiff her gait was as she exited his office, obviously sore from the overabundance of pleasures they inflicted upon one another all throughout the night.

After pulling on his own clothes, Pacey examined Sadia's phone number on that Post-It. _At least something small salvaged,_ he thought, pocketing the yellow square into his slacks pocket. He picked up the Newton's Cradle from the floor where it lay, sprawled and awkward. Grabbing his briefcase and keys, he tossed his jacket over his shoulder as he exited the office. When he left the building, he tossed that pointless gadget into the huge aluminum trash bin right outside. Getting into his car, he drove off without a second glance back.

_It's not a love, it's not a love,  
It's not a love, it's not a love song  
It's not a love, it's not a love, it's not a love song  
It's not a love, it's not a love, it's not a love song._

_-__**The Song Beneath the Song**__ by Maria Taylor_

XXXXX


	5. Chapter 5

**The Last Redux**

_It is also good to love: because love is difficult. For one human being to love another human being: that is perhaps the most difficult task that has been entrusted to us, the ultimate task, the final test and proof, the work for which all other work is merely preparation. That is why young people, who are beginners in everything, are not yet capable of love: it is something they must learn. With their whole being, with all their forces, gathered around their solitary, anxious, upward-beating heart, they must learn to love. But learning-time is always a long, secluded time ahead and far on into life is-; solitude, a heightened and deepened kind of aloneness for the person who loves._

_--from Letter #7,__** Letters to a Young Poet**__ by Rainier Maria Rilke_

When she steals, quiet, out of her dormitory room, just one hour past midnight, she pauses on the threshold in a familiar hallway, glimpses the specter of a past that was less than a millisecond away in one reality, several months before in her own. Walking to that window-seat, she sinks down upon it, brings her knees up and balls herself into its corner. She rests her cheek against the burnished wood.

It is 1 AM. No one is asleep yet.

Someone down the hallway is listening to classic Rolling Stones. Guitars strum, impassioned and whimsical, as puckish shouts sing loudly,_Hey you, get off of my cloud!_

Merriment drifts over from the communal lounge. A boy and a girl are laughing together. Study-partners perhaps. Platonic even. Maybe. Or maybe not.

Televisions swirl a universe of sound-bites into the air, congregating murmurs and laugh tracks.

A microwave oven beeps termination, trailing leisurely the cloying scent of buttered popcorn.

Tall blond boy wearing a black Worthington track-suit strolls by, talking on his cell-phone. _Shut up already! We've been through this a gazillion times!_ He connects eyes, pauses to acknowledge her—this girl, sitting here on that window-seat—with a brief up-tilt of his chin. He continues down the hallway whispering, somewhat affectionate, switched to wry and warm, _You're such a fucking pain in the ass…_

Chatter from outside rolls into the building—sonic swells, intermittent, riding the opening and closing of the main doors.

The girl burrows into her thick Worthington sweatshirt—gray with dark burgundy outline letters spelling out that exalted name—pulls the sleeves over her hands, wraps arms around herself into a solitary embrace. Not too long ago, she would have left back in her bed, a sleeping, slightly snoring boy. She would have stayed there, snuggled against him, warmer than right now, curled into this window-seat, in the drafty hallway. But That Boy's long gone, was probably gone before he actually left. He asked her to come with him, yet did not stay for her reply, patience not quite a virtue. Blessings in disguise, she supposed.

Before that, she gave That Boy an evening, also not too long ago past, where she hung her reservations out to dry. Made fully public all the thoughts and issues about herself—about sex—that she usually kept private, insular, hidden. In front of a radio talk show host, a sound-bite psychologist, and an auditorium of her collegiate peers, most of whom she knew not at all, a few of whom she thought she knew very well. But who really knows a person? You cannot even truly know yourself. They've been debating that one since the dawn of time. Or, at least, Philosophy.

And there was another boy. This Boy went further back and, simultaneously, was much more recent.

When it was happening with This Boy, she never did pause to measure the sum of so many parts. She holds her hands out in front of her, spreads wide the five fingers on her two hands.

One fancy work function. One night at a Super K-Mart. One evening of pizza. One day of thinking over. One early morning tryst after his Capeside jaunt. One old-fashioned date. One kiss to push the edges of restraint. One office encounter when they breached them. One chaperoned semi-formal. One long cab ride.

Everything, it moves so fast. So fast.

She'd like to slow it down. Into an infinitesmal moment. Infinitesmal. Such a big word for describing such a small thing. Tinier than small. A milli-whatever. She thought back to all of the big words they used since childhood, when Dawson Leery decided that the dictionary could make them smart and Pacey Witter discovered that the thesaurus would make them smarter and then she, Joey Potter, started the whole VocabulaWar that set them off on their merry path toward super-sizing their language so that all the big words and all the Queen's English could never put back together again just the simplest of letters into one syllable. Everything became compound and multi-parts.

Those bigger words, they stretch out the instant. Maybe those big words were to make long those moments that fly by so fast. Long words to maybe slow down Time itself.

But Time slows down, never.

Even here, on a window-seat, amongst a roiling ocean of noises, Time does not stop as she tries to be still.

She has to be still to connect with that solitary silence deep within.

XXXXX

Last week, she and Eddie considered taking a trip to Europe. _And I'm not talking about just Paris here, Joey,_ he said. _I'm talking about Barcelona and Madrid and Vienna and Prague and wherever. I mean, the sky's the limit, Jo. And all you have to do is just say yes._ YES and it would have been fun, could have been fine, might have been the beginning of the rest of her life. But she hemmed and hawed and played devil's advocate while Eddie waxed rhapsodic about romantic adventure, throwing all caution to the winds. He was having none of her protestations to the contrary.

_So what? What are you gonna do? You just wanna sit here for your entire life waiting and hoping for the world to come to you? Because the point of those stories, Joey, is that people's lives-- their real lives-- only begin when they step out into the world. And when you do that, when you meet it head on, maybe you change the world, maybe you don't, but the point is, is that it changes you. And that is what people mean when they talk about growing up._

She _had_ gone on a romantic adventure with a boy once before. It _did_ change her world. But _she_ did not change. Not really. Perhaps that was the problem. She did not tell any of this to Eddie. She barely told these things to herself.

Yet still…from Joseph Heller's **Catch–22**, Professor Hetson highlighted his own version of a life lesson and made her read it aloud:

_They'll have to try like hell to catch me this time. They will try like hell. And even if they don't find you, what kind of way is that to live? You'll always be alone, no one will ever be on your side, and you'll always live in danger of betrayal. I live that way now. But you can't just turn your back on all your responsibilities and run away from them, Major Danby insisted. It's such a negative mood. It's escapist. Yossarian laughed with buoyant scorn and shook his head. I'm not running away from my responsibilities. I'm running to them. There's nothing negative about running away to save my life._

…and she got the point (well, how obvious was it, when Hetson of all people forced her to see it?). But when she returned to her dorm room, she found from Eddie, just a card tucked neat into an envelope, perched by her telephone:

_Dear Joey, as you know, I'm not good at good-byes, but I guess that's what this is. A real one this time. Because as much as I thought I wanted us to be together, I guess what I want more is to be one of those people who lives every moment of his life without indecision and without regrets. Someone who dares to disturb the universe without a thought to the consequences. And you're not one of those people, at least not yet. Maybe you'll prove me wrong about that one day. I hope you do. But who knows? Maybe people can't change. Maybe we're doomed to repeat the same mistakes over and over again no matter how hard we try. I always hope for a happy ending. How crazy is that? Take care of yourself._

She sat on the edge of her bed, staring at the note for some time. Not reading it, instead just giving her eyes a focal point as she searched inside herself for the real writing on the wall, the statements that would encapsulate all the things she was feeling.

Anger at the way Eddie just up and left, leaving her hanging loose and empty-handed, save for this note. But then again, there was this note, as opposed to the sudden emptiness of an unannounced absence, something she had faced before. That devastated her, back then.

Sadness at circumstances, at realizing she had chosen to take a gamble, walked away from a renewed romance, gone with a potential fresh love beckoning. Yet still, she stayed mired in her own indecision. Which made her question: was there a reason why she hesitated?

Disappointment at herself, for she had such lousy timing. Always a step behind an action, dawdling too long within thoughtful consideration, speculation, and over-analysis. Disappointment, too, in That Boy for not sticking around. The right timing requires two to tango.

_Eddie... all I'm saying is that... running away together, no matter how romantic and magical it all seems at the time, it doesn't solve anything, okay?_ she told him, when he first brought up the idea of going away together. _So whatever it is that you're running away from, whether it be circumstances or geography, you know—Fate, another person—it's always gonna be there when you get back._

Then Joey remembered that wall from high school, the one that dripped the red-dark painted words _Ask Me to Stay._ She was given some time for a choice back then, and though it almost came too late, she was allowed to make it and act upon it. No such opportunity here.

This made her realize: she _was_ one of those people who dares to disturb the universe without a thought to the consequences. Once upon a time.

That Boy never really knew her at all. But she did not _let_ him know her, either.

So much for happy endings.

XXXXX

An entire existence of human beings on earth is a mere blink of an eye compared to the whole that the worlds and oceans and amoebas thrived, for billions upon billions of years. That's what they say. A blink of an eye that's a mere split-second in one realm passes an eternity in another.

She did not know what brought her to that threshold. _His_ threshold. A whole two hands before, she stood in that same spot—a forever ago, it seems. Back then, her fist raised to knock and he opened the door and they just stood there. He, with his new haircut, no trace of moustache and goatee. She, looking once more, upon the prior boy.

He won't open this door right now, all serendipitous-like, she thought. No, that lightening will not strike twice. If this happened again, it would definitely be a sign. They were never good with signs. She was right. She stood there for a full half-hour. She looked at her watch every five minutes, on average, although there were times she checked and the seconds arm had barely done a full circle 'round.

No, she stood there for exactly 1 half-hour. 30 whole minutes. 1,800 seconds. She doesn't have the math skills to get tinier than that. That was already pretty minuscule, elongated out to an epoch. One-half-hour she stood there on His threshold at almost 2 a.m.

Tremors evolved, now in aftershock.

Her knock was like the earthquake they forgot had happened in-between.

_You've grown up too, Jo. And you've become quite the amazing woman, if I might add. Just thought you should know that I was looking. And, that I noticed_.

That's what Pacey told her in the dim hallway of her dormitory, after they had been sitting on that window-seat together, just talking. She was standing in front of that grand, beveled window in her Worthington dormitory hallway, poised to get into his Mustang, drive to his apartment, sleep solitaire in his bed. Pacey offered her that sanctuary. He was by her door, on the verge of entering, contrite after a fight with Audrey, mollified by their recent conversation. Joey gave him that reprieve. The stillness of that space between receding night and the breaking of dawn embraced Them, suspended on that threshold at the edge of a new day.

It was autumn.

Springtime now, this threshold felt different.

It's funny how as one gets older, every moment recalls a prior one, throws back to an earlier instant, brings forth emotions and senses from that past time into the present, so one feels both, simultaneous. _I've been here before_, Joey thought, _but this is a different time. I am a different person._

Pacey opened the door.

He did not look happy.

XXXXX

Bertha the TV was on. The new and improved Bertha, having gone through expensive—and expansive—reconstructive surgery. From her widescreen face, _Friends_ reruns blared in full Technicolor on medium-low volume. Jack had started collecting the full season DVDs and he kept a disc in the machine at all times. Pacey liked to "check in with Bertha" to see what random episode would come up. Chronology was always out of order, but easily filed into context as soon as the oft-watched scenes came on. Automatic _Friends_ Filo-Fax in everyone's memory.

Over morning coffee, he could watch Ross and Rachel Get Together and He Rolls Onto That Carton of Milk and They Think It Is Premature Ejaculation. Or during a Saturday afternoon laundry fold-fest on the couch, Phoebe and Chandler Sing That Duet of Endless Love, Including the Oh Ohs. Or when he got home after a long workday, just after midnight, his brain fried and muscles gooey, yearning for easy distraction, Joey Ogles Monica's Fake Boobs Waitress Uniform from the 50s Diner.

Each episode pinpointed a specific, singular moment in the lives of these familiar six people throughout so many years. You could click right into that episode's context upon viewing, no matter where it emerged upon that show's continuum, jumping back into a moment you shared with so many others, reliving it for yet one more half-hour. One you could rewind, fast-forward, even watch in slo-mo or frame-by-frame—a virtual resurrection on demand.

But TV is not real life.

So Joey leaned against the kitchen counter and Pacey bustled about as Ross and Rachel Argued About Being "On A Break" in the background. She watched him as he put various things away. "Gay, And Groovy!" coffee mug from the sterling silver dish-wash holder to a cabinet shelf up above. Chocolate-brown plastic filter, washed and dried, set back into the automatic drip coffee maker. Starbucks coffee bag tossed into a neat corner—that day's flavor, Café Estima Blend Fair Trade Certified. Cheerios box placed up on the top of the refrigerator.

Déjà vu.

Last time, it was morning. Jack stood there instead, rumpled and disoriented, quizzical, interrogating, offering her a bowl of cereal to go with her caffeine brew, poured into that "Gay, And Groovy!" coffee mug. Pacey was at her Worthington dorm room with Audrey. She and He had parted during the wee hours of a breaking morn—impulsive, remembering, and completely platonic. Now, three seasons over, way after midnight, there was no longer an Audrey. No Eddie either. But she did not tell him that. And She and He were way past platonic. It was always so, wasn't it?

Pacey wiped down the kitchen counter with a worn white-and-blue-striped rag. He wore dark sweats, a wife-beater tank top and black flip-flops—his usual after-work garb—and from his demeanor, he looked as if he had been through a wringer of a day. Or maybe he felt he was about to begin the wringer part now that she was here, which Joey did not want to dwell upon and perhaps he did not, either. They remained silent while Bertha bellowed witty one-liners at a steady clip, uninterrupted, supplemented by well-timed slapstick. From the street below, a male member of the nightly co-ed inebriation club, exiting the closing Hell's Kitchen across the way, yelled, "Party 'til you die, dude!" while raucous cheers greeted his pronouncement. Their intoxicated fervor filled the air with giggles and shouts and a shattering bottle or two.

"Are you ever going to talk to me again, Pace?" Joey finally asked.

The towel paused and his eyes bore down into the marble top, focused onto nothing. "Do I really need to? It never matters."

"It matters to me."

He shrugged, bouncing her response off like a gnat.

"Where's Jack?" Joey asked, venturing forth again, shifting into neutral.

"Staying with Jen and Grams tonight. Girls' night in to wallow and eat ice cream." He looked at her then, his gaze wary, guarded, touched with irritation. "Why are you here, Jo?"

"You never called."

"You never did either."

"I just…I wanted to make sure we were okay."

"Why?"

Because Eddie just dumped me—again. Because I actually wanted him to. Because I made a mistake. Because I miss you. Because I don't know what else to do. Because I can't lose you. Because I've lost myself. Because I need you. Because I don't _want _to need you. Because you're Pacey.

Pick one, Joey. Or, pick silence. Silence, it was.

She took in Pacey's rigid expression, the dark flatness of his eyes.

"If Eddie is what you want, you should be with him."

He said it quietly with a hard edge. She couldn't tell if he meant it as an observation or an accusation. It sounded like the latter.

"He's what I needed, Pace. I just—I can't explain it." Then she added, "You're what I'm _going_ to want, someday."

A harsh laugh erupted from him and he lasered her with a disbelieving glare. "Can't you come up with something more original, Jo? You told Dawson that once." As it dawned on her that yes, she _did_ tell Dawson that once, he continued, "Yeah, back in the days when he told me things, he told me you said that. He also told me how it made him feel."

"And that was?"

"Confused. Angry. Hurt. He felt like shit, Joey. That statement is the equivalent of a guy telling a woman 'It's not you. You deserve better.' They're just words, Jo."

_They're just words, Joey. They're just words. 'Cause after you're done dispensing your pleasantries here, you're gonna turn around and you're gonna walk away from me. Aren't you?_

_I have to, otherwise, I'll never know._

Same words, different boy, separate occasion. She _did_ walk away from Dawson—_ran_ away and raced to Pacey at the docks. And she _did_ know. She loved Pacey. Completely. Now the tables were turned and those words arose again, manifesting into changed relevance. Yet she wasn't running to another boy this time. Dawson was out of the picture. Eddie was already gone. _Maybe we're doomed to repeat the same mistakes over and over again no matter how hard we try,_ he said in his goodbye note. Irony—or karma? It was too soon to tell.

"Pacey—I just—I need something else right now. These past two years—"

"—you've been experimenting and exploring and pushing your envelope and just trying to be someone other than Little Joey Potter from Capeside. I get it, Jo. I do. So that's what those two weeks were, right? Just a harmless fling until Eddie 'the real deal' came back?"

"It's not like that at all!"

"Oh hey, there's Pacey with his heart on his sleeve again!" he went on, ignoring her attempts to get words in edgewise. "And hey, the sex is pretty great, why not give him a spin? Sure was fun, Miz Josephine, and it was truly a pleasure _doing_ you again—" She flinched at his tone "—but seriously, I get it now. Loud and clear."

"Maybe we shouldn't have had sex."

"Jo, this isn't just about that. That doesn't matter and you know it. You _want_ it to matter. But that was never the point."

"Pacey, I don't want to argue about this! This happens every time we talk about sex—"

She stopped when he suddenly threw the rag down onto the counter and stalked over to her, swift and panther-lethal. He took her shoulders in his hands—his grip firm but not a vise—and hauled her up against him, brought her chest into his. So close, so warm. No, heated. Hot. Joey got hot all over. Pacey stared down into her eyes, his own deep deep blue, lazy-lidded yet intent.

"So stop talking…" he drawled, his voice rumbling raspy-soft before shifting quick into brutal, "…Are you here to _fuck_?"

Her gasp was a mixture of shock, revulsion and, contrary enough, anticipation. Pacey gripped her shoulders harder, to keep her from stepping away. To stop her from slapping him. To force her to Stay. Right. There. He kept staring down at her and, God help her, she couldn't tear her own eyes away. Joey felt every ridge and hollow of him pressed against her, throbbing through her. All over, they vibrated, like tuning forks made of flesh, melded together.

Then just like that, he let her go.

"Screw this. I'm making some popcorn."

He turned away and went to the pantry. She teetered, unsteady and mortified.

"You're being an asshole."

"Well, you're a bitch," Pacey replied calmly, going over to the microwave to toss an Orville Redenbacher Movie Extra-Butter packet into it. He bent to push the pertinent buttons and their beeps punctuated the static air between them.

"So we've denigrated to name-calling?"

"We've denigrated, yes. Name-calling is just a privilege that comes with it," he said. Straightening, he looked at her, his expression logical, impassive. "This is a fact: You're a bitch, Josephine Potter. And frankly, I'm tired of being yours."

Joey just stared at him. He seemed so cold, so hard. The muscles in her legs quivered, then gave, so she went over to the couch to sink down onto the cushions. She _was_ a bitch. There was no way to counter it and she did not want to. She crossed her arms over her belly because it hurt, deep within, and the ache started to spread up through her throat, into her limbs, settling all over. Truth always aches.

"You're not gonna cry, are you?"

Pacey was twenty years old now but he sounded just like ten, like the day he came over to her after she got hit by his shot-kicked soccer ball during recess at Capeside Elementary School and dared her not to be a sissy about it. She could see him standing there in front of her, short and stubby, before his growth spurt into long and lanky, blue eyes flashing, challenging her, his fists clenched and ready to retaliate any blows she might rain on him, his chin jutting out, stubborn, ignoring Dawson's plaintive cries from the other side of the playground to "Leave her alone!"

"No," she said, pulling the word up from that place that held her pride, her dignity, and her self-control. She. Could. Not. Cry. Would. Not.

The microwave beeped loud and long.

"Popcorn's ready," Pacey said.

XXXXX

The red plastic popcorn bowl settled on the couch between them like a child set between two quarreling parents, the buffer in-between. They watched those Friends on TV, letting the impasse between them hover uncertain, letting scripted quips and laugh-tracks obscure it. Their hands took turns diving into the steaming heap of kernels, innately working out the timing so they would not be reaching in at the same time. Once in awhile, an awkward brush would occur—skin knocking against skin—and there would be an abrupt yanking back, an edgy waiting, and then the timing of consistent avoidance would work itself out again.

They sat together on so many couches, so many times before, just like this, in front of the TV, eating popcorn. Layers of time condense seconds, minutes, days, months, and years. Transfixes that which is invisible to a human eye, yet felt throughout a lifetime, silent tremors. Joey trembled there, next to Pacey, but kept her shivers to herself. They were here together on this couch but were nowhere near each other, in truth. She knew she could leave, but she did not want to walk away. Those lessons, she learned: when it truly matters, one must stay.

Leaning back against the corner cushions, Pacey bent one leg and brought it up to rest upon the other, throwing one arm careless onto the couch arm, keeping the other alongside to delve into the popcorn bowl at safe intervals. He looked so devil-may-care. No, he looked like he did not care at all—rumpled, relaxed and completely closed to her.

Joey could smell a woman's musk coming off him—a perfume tinged with sweat, with sensuality. She got a whiff of that scent before, when he grabbed her earlier, and now, settled next to him on the couch, she had more time to place it. It was from that brazen-bosomed female reporter in Pacey's office, the one she "accidentally" spilled cream upon to halt her obvious flirting. She would recognize that odor anywhere. It was brassy, cloying and overtly profuse, much like its wearer. Lord! Was that really just a few weeks ago?

Apparently, there had been a follow up interview. Or several. Joey squelched down on the quick ire, the painful flash of seeing herself on her knees before Pacey, giving him pleasure that she enjoyed herself, most thoroughly, suddenly replaced by that dark-haired wench, those intimacies easily interchangeable. Her stomach lurched and she stopped reaching for the popcorn. She interlaced her hands together into her lap and stared at the TV screen before her, as if her life depended on it. All the Friends were eavesdropping as Ross and Rachel hollered at each other in the bedroom.

"What's the matter with you?" Pacey asked, annoyance flitting across his features.

"Nothing," she replied. When he leaned forward to put the popcorn bowl onto the coffee table, traces of that sickly-sweet aroma assailed her and she added, "Nice new perfume you're wearing these days."

Joey was appalled when she heard herself say it, but could not help herself. Pacey stilled in mid-stretch, then let the bowl drop lightly onto the tabletop.

"You're in no position to comment on my sex life."

"I didn't say anything about s—"

"Didn't have to. It's always right there, lurking beneath the surface. No need to be passive-aggressive about it. Yeah, I'm fucking someone right now. Quite happily, I might add. She's a real wildcat."

It was the second "fuck" that came up in his conversation and again, she recoiled inside. She wasn't being prudish—it was just the way Pacey said it—so matter-of-fact and indifferent. He stabbed her with the sound of it.

"You're right. I don't need to know the gory details."

Nonchalant, Pacey settled back, focusing on the TV again. "Oh, they're not gory at all. You might even learn a few things. You could try them out with Eddie."

Joey felt her cheeks, her neck, go red-warm and dropped her eyes to her lap. This felt so wrong, talking this way, lacerating each other. She recalled last fall, when she and Dawson flung accusations and disillusionments at each other in her dorm room, dragging each other down, dropping broken dreams left and right. Studying Pacey's profile across from her, its set jaw, the hard lines of his expression, she decided not to let history repeat itself.

"Pacey, are we really gonna do this?"

"Do what?"

"Rip each other apart with tiny well-placed comments until we're too shredded to feel anything?"

"Melodramatic, much?"

"I get that you're pissed at me, Pace. And I know I deserve it—" he snorted, sarcastic, but she continued, intrepid, "So tell me."

"Tell you what?"

"All the ways I'm a bitch."

"I'm not in the mood to do this, Jo," Pacey said, starting to get up this time. Joey clamped her hand on his shoulder. He glared at her and she felt another shiver go through her—he actually looked evil in that moment—but she did not let go. He relented and did not struggle. Nor did he try to get up again. That was a hopeful sign.

"I really want to know, Pacey."

He let out an exasperated sigh and ran a hand through his hair. Sections of ends stood up in places, making him look all sorts of rumpled-sexy, but his harsh expression sent those sensual thoughts skittering away fast. Pacey was very very angry.

"Okay, first off, you don't know what you want."

"Me and every college-age student out there! What about that makes me a bitch?"

"I thought you just wanted to hear my list. I didn't know we were going to debate about it."

"You have a list?"

"I'm just getting started here. Sure you want to hear it? We can end this now. You can go home, I can get some sleep—I've had a _bruising_ night—" he tossed her a lecherous, knowing look, "and we can pretend this never happened. Never mention it again."

"I don't want to pretend."

"It's what you're good at."

"Come again?"

"Pretending. Sorry to invoke the sacred name of Dawson, but you two perfected that particular dance to the nth degree. It's what you do—see the world through romantic rose-colored glasses. When it blew up, you both freaked out. And now it's encroaching onto our own little tango."

"I've never pretended with you." Then, "I never could. I can't."

"You admit to pretending with Dawson, then?"

"Why do we always go back to him?"

"Because _you_ go back to him, again and again!"

"_You_ brought him up!"

"Okay, fine. You're right." Pacey sighed, exasperated, and rubbed his stubbly chin, a leftover habit from when he still had his goatee. "Dawson seems to be my default with you and that's probably not fair. Let me back up. For the life of you, you can't seem to make your own decisions about your love life. You always leave it up to the boy."

"That's not true!"

"Yes it is. You always base your actions on the comings and goings of boys. With Dawson, he was the one who kissed you first to start things off, even though you kept needling him for months while he was with Jen. And then, as soon as you had him, you dropped him like a hot potato because for some reason, you had to 'find yourself' at the advanced age of sixteen."

Joey started to protest but Pacey held up his palm in front of her face, effectively cutting her off.

"Jack ended up defaulting your relationship because he came out of the closet, so that ended by circumstance. I'll give you that one. That was a wash," he continued. "A.J. happened to be in love with his best friend, and didn't really know you anyway. You thought you were being noble, but that was a done deal in any case. Which left you to bitterly expound on the hopelessness of ever finding love, again, at sixteen, which is—God forbid!—apparently the end of a lifetime, until I kissed you at the side of the road to shut you up…"

"Well, that's a terribly unromantic way to put it," she managed to sputter.

"…starting you and me and Dawson down that excruciating road of "Who shall Joey choose?' I lay myself down at your feet, practically begging, until I got fed up and went about the business of moving on by myself. That made you come after me, which by the way proves the adage that girls only go after the boys that treat them like shit and leave them—"

"That is such bull! And you never treated me like shit!"

"No, Dawson did, and you know it. And you _liked_ it. And did you or did you not come running after me on the docks that day and then hop aboard the _True Love_ without a moment's thought because I would have sailed away without you? It wasn't that you wanted me to stay—you just didn't want me to leave! You were afraid to be alone!"

"It was a lot more than that and you know it! You're making it sound so reactionary!"

"Well it _was_ reactionary! Which is yet another thing on my list of grievances about you. You only act when you have to _react_ and that gets so damned tiresome!"

"I went to the airport last year to stop Dawson! _And_ I got _you_ to come with me to stop Audrey. That was totally acting on an impulse!"

"That was _reacting_ to the fact that Dawson was gonna get on a plane and fly away from you because you didn't have the sense to say anything to him before then. _And_, if you recall, you _still_ didn't resolve anything and let him leave and _I_ was the one who went balls out and took off with Audrey!"

"If we're being anatomically correct, seeing as you're the one who actually has the balls in this scenario, then that's to be expected."

"Well, seeing as I was using it only as metaphor, I'd say _you_ are in dire need of some Size D implants then! Make that a Double D!"

Joey crossed her arms in front of her.

"I don't like this frame of reference. It's silly."

"And off-topic. We're addressing _your_ propensity to jump ship and flee to your designated life-raft, formerly known as Dawson Leery. Now that the captain of that ship is out of the picture, you seem to be flailing toward whomever is second-in-command."

"All of this shifting of metaphors is making my head hurt."

"Okay—let's go more direct. Like right now, why are you here? Did you and Eddie have a fight or something?"

She stayed silent.

"You had a fight?"

Joey still said nothing and turned her face away, so he could not read her. But he took her chin into his hand and turned her face back toward his, forcing her to look at him as he bore his gaze right into hers.

"He left, didn't he?"

She jerked her chin out of his hand and Pacey lay back, eyes narrowed. "So now you're here. That means _I'm_ your new goddamned security blanket."

Even as she noted in her head that they had switched into yet another mixed metaphor, he sprang off the couch and stalked over to the counter, plopping himself onto one of its stools. As if he could not bear to be near her any longer. That hurt her more than the silent distance they cultivated earlier, on both sides of that red popcorn bowl.

"You should leave. Now," Pacey said.

"I can't."

"Yes, you can. Just get up, walk over to the door, and close it behind you as you exit."

"I won't leave. You're too important to me, Pacey."

"Do I need to physically throw you out of here?"

Joey did not move, did not look at him, and braced herself. Pacey got up and came to her, bent down and grabbed her wrists to pull her off the couch. He was not gentle. She planted her feet into the floor and focused on staying put. He was stronger and wrapped his arms around her waist, lifting her. But she wiggled and pushed and kicked out at him. Her foot found his shin, hard, and he dropped her back onto the couch. Then she swung her arm and knocked him over, right onto her.

They tussled on the couch, recalling past battling, reaching far back into childhood, except he would not dare hit her now and she did not want to hit him. Not really. She already knew she had delivered the hardest blow when she stomped on his heart a few weeks ago, when he offered it out to her again and she made him take it back. Forced him to take it back. When Pacey called her a bitch, he was only putting Truth out there. He was always putting Truth out there, whether she wanted to hear it or not. Pacey sat up, straddling, her wrists gripped in his hands. He looked down at her, furious.

"Here's the thing, Jo," he bit out. "You'd like to think you're beyond little Josephine Potter from Capeside—and I've always been your most avid cheerleader in your attempts to get away from her—but you're still clinging." He leaned down, his face coming close to hers, almost sneering, yet tinged by anguish. "You're still clinging to _me_. And I'm sick of it."

Joey wanted to weep. His anger pushed an ancient pain to rise up within her. It was a pain that should not have had anything to do with now. Her voice breaking, she asked, "Is that why you left me after graduation? Because I was clinging? And you were sick of me?"

Pacey blinked, startled, and his grip slackened. He fell back onto the opposite corner of the couch and disentangled himself from her. He did not say anything. Joey sat up and burrowed into the cushions around her, feeling exposed and raw. The TV was too loud and the Friends were getting on her nerves. Pacey reached over and grabbed the remote control, switching off those intrusive characters. The sound of a car passing on the street below emerged loud into that sudden silence, then another, and another. It was so late—or so early. All the revelers had been cleared away long ago. Who the hell was out there at this time?

"Is that what you really thought?" Pacey asked, not looking at her, his fist bouncing, restless, on his knee.

"You left without a word. No note, no phone call. You told Andie where you were going and never told _me_. At least Eddie left me a note."

"Oh, and that makes things so much better," he said, flashing her a sardonic look. "You just went running back to Dawson anyway. Just like you've come running back to me. It never changes, Jo. Don't you get tired of it?"

"Dawson was my best friend and he was _there_. You just _left_ Pacey! I thought we were at a good place. I thought we were okay. And then you were gone. I'm just so tired of people disappearing in my life."

"Don't descend into 'woe is me' shit right now, Joey. You'll make me hurl, no doubt."

"I wasn't intending to. I've made mistakes, I know I have—"

"—Do you really?" Pacey turned, facing her head on. "Really, truly—do you _know_ you've made mistakes? From where I'm sitting, you seem to keep doing the same thing over and over again. You get intimate with a guy, you freak out, you take off and go back to something tried and true that you construct in your head, that real life can't possibly live up to. Then you get bored, and you're off to someone new—"

"Oh _that's_ rich coming from you! You just admitted that you've gone onto your next conquest, without barely a pause!"

"Oh I _paused_ all right. I freakin' stopped in my tracks, kept my dick very nicely in my pants—except whenever _you_ felt the urge to pull it out for _your _pleasure—and _you_ were the one who went straight from kicking my useless ass to the curb to that fucking Eddie Guy in one night! So don't get all self-righteous with _me,_ missy! _You_ are the hypocrite!"

"God! This is getting all mixed up!"

"That's because _you_ always mix it up!"

They were yelling now and next door, a disgruntled neighbor pounded on the wall, telling them to "Shut the fuck up!!!" They lapsed into silence, sulking in their respective corners.

"This is pointless," Pacey said, thumping his fist, frustrated, on the couch arm. "If Eddie left, then why don't you just follow him?"

_If all of this is about Eddie, why didn't you follow him across the country?_ Harley asked her, before any of this started with Pacey, when Joey was just thinking about it, wondering and wistful. _It's not just about him_, Joey clarified. _It's... it's about me and...what I'm ready for._

_What are you ready for?_ Harley asked.

Outside, that annoying car alarm went off again—the one that went off like clockwork in those wee small hours of the morning—right smack within the dead of a stagnant quiet. Pacey complained about it one night when he was in his bed here in his apartment and Joey was in hers at Worthington and they both were on the phone, laughing themselves silly over the latest Jack and Jen argumentative escapade. _If that's not a sign of dire straits, I don't know what is,_ he chuckled. Bystanders, both, they found so much to laugh about. But that was Before. This, right now, was no laughing matter.

"I need to pee," Pacey announced, getting up off the couch, leaving the room without a second glance back. Joey watched him head down the hallway, half-wondering if she should follow him, to make sure he would return. Instead, she wrapped her arms around herself, holding hard, keeping herself compact and contained. She felt like she was spilling out all over the place, messy and aimless.

Joey wished she were fifteen years old again, when she bashed pesky Grant Hollins with a lunch tray in the cafeteria for being an asshole. Things seemed so black-and-white then. Right and wrong had clearly marked boundaries. So did friends and lovers. She had no lovers then. But she did feel more prickly, more punchy, more sure of herself. What happened?

She fell in love.

When she was younger, she was more in love with the _idea_ of being in love. She could control that—those ideas firmly locked in her head. Now she was older, and she realized that Love was really such a vague and neutral notion, becoming potent only in the giving of it. Or when it was completely destroyed. Yet so many worlds opened up, each time she let them, every time she loved a boy. Pacey was actually right about that.

Dawson encompassed her whole world for such a long time. He came complete with a family, emerging fully-formed from the banks of Capeside's creek, taking her into their home full of jaunty advice and warm meals and unconditional affection and open windows. That love was a dream come true, in every way, beyond just the two of them. Or perhaps it was always about everything _but_ the two of them. Romance always revisited, trying them on for size, always found them wanting. Especially this last go 'round, last autumn. It should have been natural, this progression from best friends to lovers. Yet it never was. It never would be.

Pacey blindsided her, toppled that world and spun it all around. Yet despite hers and Dawson's insistences that they could read each other like open books, Pacey was the one that would always read her thoughts and desires, sometimes even before she formulated them. This went far back, before they were ever intimately involved, all the way back to playgrounds and front lawns and protruding docks. To fisticuffs and sparring matches and black eyes. She could never really pinpoint him or classify him or label who they were together. They were enemies that became friends that became lovers that became friends again. And now after becoming lovers for a second time, were they doomed to be enemies once more to complete that full circle coming around?

Of course, there were smatterings of explorations in between and amongst Those Two, including Yacht Boy who gave her that first perfect kiss and Jack, who awakened her senses, creative as well as sensual. A. J. made her feel special and smart. Professor Wilder, who triggered a flirtation with the forbidden. Charlie was her walk on the wild side, a rocker boy that yearned to be reformed, but she was a good girl that wanted to go bad. And there was summer fling guy that barely even registered now, except for soft kisses and wandering hands that kept thoughts of other boys—far away from her—at bay.

And then there was Eddie—an unsullied, fresh world she wanted to subsume herself into. Familiar yet also singular. Dawson's idealism tempered by Pacey's cynicism. A walking quip-master with a cynical streak that just barely covered a deeper yearning to actually dream large. Raw intelligence beyond standard walls of learning and a thirst for wanderlust melded with that self-absorbed, one-track mindedness that does not realize that the world-view he has is totalitarian unto him. He was like the best combination of boys she had once loved but Not From Capeside. That was the greatest draw. So being with him allowed her to _feel_ changed. Joey needed that. Craved it. Yet in the end, it was not enough. He may have left her, but she did not want to follow.

She loved them all. Yet still, she did not know how to love.

XXXXX

When Pacey returned from his long sojourn to the bathroom, he did not say anything to Joey, merely settled himself back into his corner of the couch as if they had not just been tearing into each other at the highest volume just one-half hour before. He picked up the remote control. Switching Bertha back on, he switched to live cable TV instead, banishing _Friends_ from the screen. The Discovery Channel was on, airing a special show about The Geology of the Earth. The narrator—in his best Listen Here To These Important Facts! voice—intoned:

_The Earth's outer layer of its interior is the lithosphere. It is broken up into what are called tectonic plates. Seven major and many minor ones ride on the asthenosphere, which is the inner layer of the Earth's interior. These plates move in relation to one another. There are three types of plate boundaries. One, convergent or collision boundaries. Two, divergent or spreading boundaries. And three, transform boundaries. Earthquakes, volcanic activity, mountain-building, and oceanic trench formation occur along each of these plate boundaries._

Accompanying this earnest narration were pastel-colored maps and diagrams of the world map, interspersed with demonstrations of the different kinds of plate movements and action shots of violently splashing lava and quick-moving masses of red-hot molten earth. Joey thought about those tectonic plates, even now shifting beneath the Earth's crust, fluid and friction combined, roiling over, around and against each other. Meanwhile miles and miles above, all living creatures went about their existences on solid ground, paved by thick concrete or smoothed by packed dirt or anchored by towering mountains. Yet all of it, at a tectonic instant, would be vulnerable to crumbling, to dissolving into nothing, into dust, into air, with no warning.

"For the record, Jo, it wasn't you."

The statement emerged quiet, yet firm, and Joey turned her gaze away from the destruction on the screen to the coiled compactness of Pacey, burrowed into the corner of the couch. He was not looking at her, but she felt his awareness shifted toward her, instead of the TV. While Joey sat here, alone, thinking backwards and forwards and every which way, Pacey must have done some mulling back there, piecing his own fragments together in a separate solitude from hers.

"What?" she asked, almost as much to ensure that he actually said something into the air between them than as an actual query.

"Before. Back then," he said, waving his hand. "I told you then and it was always true—that was all about _me_. And I needed to go away so that it would be clear, so that the responsibility was mine alone. So it wouldn't hurt you anymore. I know I hurt you, Joey. I know because I was hurt too. I was devastated."

"So was I," she said.

They looked at each other, finally, and something relaxed between them. Joey reached out, hesitant, and placed her hand onto his knee. He let her.

"So what were you thinking about?" Pacey asked her. She knew he meant before, when they were apart, not here on this couch, thoughts of the Earth's crust and tectonics and lava prancing about in her head.

"Everything," she told him. "Not just us…everything and everyone else in my life."

"I may have been pissed, but wasn't gonna kill ya. No need to have your whole life flashing before your eyes."

This made her chuckle. He actually smiled, begrudging. Their moods were like quicksilver, solidifying and battering against each other, then melting and merging again, abrupt, turning on a dime, yet they always adjusted to the flow. They were the type to forgive each other so easily, even though they would never forget. They never _should_ forget.

"It still hurts, Jo."

Pacey was looking down, all the anger drained away, leaving behind a hushed sadness. And he did not seem to know what to do with it. Anger was useful—it could mask pain, disappointment, fear. But sadness exposed everything.

"I know." Joey moved forward, hesitant. When he stayed where he was, she came even closer, close enough to lean her forehead in, to rest it against Pacey's temple. "I'm so sorry," she whispered. "It hurts for me too."

He nodded, very slightly. She squeezed his knee, gentle, and they stayed quiet and still for a very long minute. Then,

"Just to let you know," Pacey said, "I threw away that thing you gave me for the office. That Newton's Cradle thing. With the balls." When she pulled back, affronted, he told her, "I was really pissed off."

"What about the plant I gave you?"

Joey saw slight discomfiture flash across his features, but then he shrugged, saying, "I gave it to…a friend."

"Well, at least it's in good hands, right?"

"Yeah, sure. You could say that."

He laughed, a little too jocular. She decided to drop the subject.

Joey reached for the popcorn bowl and managed to scoop up a decent handful from the sparse amount of fluffy kernels still left. Pacey returned his attention to The Discovery Channel. The narrator had moved on to discussing the cooling remains of Earth's disruptive explosions, highlighting the islands and mountains and continents formed at the end of all that heaving, hot destruction. Hawai'i. The Rocky Mountains. Laurentia, which was now North America. Amidst this torrent of new facts and figures expounding, Joey turned her attention inward instead, thinking back to something else that lingered there, pesky, in her mind.

"Pacey, do you think we're doomed to make the same mistakes over and over again, no matter how hard we try?"

"Do you mean 'we' as in the proverbial 'you and I' or are you encompassing all of humankind here?"

"Either, or."

"Can I add 'terminally indecisive' to that prior list of grievances I was enumerating earlier?"

Joey hit him with a couch pillow. Pacey grabbed it, took it from her easily and, grinning, placed it in his lap. Then he grew thoughtful, a little wistful, somewhat mournful.

"I think Life's too short to get hung up on doom."

Joey had no response but placed her hand on top of his, resting there on that pillow in his lap.

"A wise woman once told me, 'It starts with you'," he went on.

She frowned. "I don't remember telling you that."

"You didn't."

He smirked. She rolled her eyes.

"Remember last fall?" Joey asked, steering them back toward earnest. At Pacey's quizzical glance, she continued, "We were sitting in my dormitory hallway, really late one night—or early morning anyway—and I told you that you grew up before any of us."

"I just let go sooner, that's all." He looked down at their hands on the sofa pillow. "Still, some things, I held on to." Turning his hand over, hers fell into the barest of a grasp, fingers untwined yet touching. "But there's a difference between holding on and clinging."

"So you say. I just have to figure that out. That difference." She wrapped all of her fingers around his thumb, and his fingers came up to cradle around that loose fist settled there in his palm.

"Just don't make me Dawson, Jo."

"What do you mean?"

"That ideal. That thing you think you want, but really, it's just an excuse not to go and figure out your own way by yourself."

His fingers were lightly rubbing the back of her hand. Joey shifted hers to intermingle with his.

"I won't, Pace. You really are my best friend now. And I love you…you know that," Joey said, her eyes soft. Her other hand came over to cover both of their hands tangled on that pillow in his lap. "What we have together means a lot to me. More than anything in this world."

"What you feel for me is other-worldy?" he teased, that glimmer of warm humor barely sheening a more tender acknowledgement of what her words meant. Words _do_ matter, if stated precisely and one listens well. For so long, she proclaimed Dawson her best friend and that meant he was her entire world. Pacey knew that just as well as she did. This was something different.

"Sure—I'll contend that often, I find you rather alien," Joey concurred, the corner of her mouth crooking up into a half-smile. Continuing past his snort of good-humored derision, she said, "I think my deal is to learn to love myself first, though, don't you think? I mean, isn't that what you did?"

Pacey looked at her, considering. "You know what you need? Your own Dean Kubelik Caribbean sailing trip."

"That sounds good."

"Or just Paris. On your own."

"Perhaps," she acknowledged.

"There's a whole world out there, Jo. Just let go and plunge right into it."

Joey remembered back when she lay on her dorm bed looking up at her ceiling, plotting the whole constellation of her relationship with Pacey, connecting every single dot, surprising and joyous and heartbreaking and companionable. Lying there, she traced the entire trajectory of Them throughout the years, every incident, every transformation.

She thought about the Music of the Spheres, an ancient philosophical concept about the movements of celestial bodies — the Sun, Moon, and planets. At one time, they were thought to revolve around the Earth in their proper spheres, and the planets lined up in perfect proportion, related by whole-number ratios of pure musical intervals, creating musical harmony. Every world had its place; every celestial body had its significance.

They were reading Dante's _Divine Comedy_ in Hetson's class, and now she recalled a specific passage:

_E'en thus was I without a tear or sigh,  
Before the song of those who sing for ever  
After the music of the eternal spheres._

Pacey was never part of just one world, but an entire universe. _Her_ entire universe, full of many worlds, spinning with life; molten vibrant stars bursting into newfound emergence yet also imploding, dying, into a vortex of black holes. A universe vast and endless, its only constant was continuous change. And infinite possibility. He shifted from Sun to Earth and even to Moon—a renegade element within these spherical forces of the Universe—sometimes dark, sometimes illuminating, always, somehow, a guiding light.

Another car whooshed by outside and a siren chirped, truncated, then went full-throttle, screeching loud into emergence, wailing exponentially less so as it receded into the distance.

"Busted," Pacey said, chuckling. "So about this Eddie Guy—" he started to say.

"Can we not talk about him?" Joey interrupted. "Not right now. And for the record, on my end, that was about _me_, not you. And I'm so sorry if it seemed like anything else, like I was fleeing from you, and going straight to him. I guess I was, in a way. But it was me, actually, who I was running from."

"Explanation, please."

"All I've ever known is you and Dawson and Capeside. I'm afraid that's all I'll _ever_ know. I _am_ tired of always going to somebody when someone else has left. And no, I _don't_ want you to become my new security blanket. You don't deserve that."

"Then I guess you need to wash your hands of both of us then—hell _all_ of us—in order to free yourself."

"So now you're my shrink?"

"Well, I don't own my own copy of E.T.," Pacey retorted, "but I guess I'm flexible like that." When he grinned, Joey smiled back at him, just a wee bit reproachful. "So, Jo," he asked, "are we good here? You and me?"

Joey took the red popcorn bowl and jumped up off the couch to head back over to the kitchen.

"I'll make the next batch," she said.

Pacey reached out to grab the remote control off the coffee table. He switched back to the DVD and _Friends_ came on. Soon, the room was filled with quips and laughter again.

XXXXX

Later, they stood, the red plastic popcorn bowl abandoned, holding only hard leftover kernels. Joey intended to walk to the door, say her goodbyes, hug Pacey a farewell that was a "see ya later" because they were okay now, they were resolved, they would have space, and they would need time.

But they were fine.

Joey thought, jaunty, _There are worse things. People can die._

_Grams has cancer_, Pacey told her, when this newest accord settled itself peaceful onto them, and they had defaulted back into sharing news of those folks they knew mutually, yet had separate encounters with these days.

_Everyone dies_, Joey mused. _Someday_.

"You okay, Jo?" Pacey asked, stepping closer, sliding a tender finger across her cheek. He wiped away salty wetness.

Surprised, she took a step back, choking back a sudden sob. He pulled her close again, into warmth, into comfort. His hands smoothed her trembling back. Placing her palms onto his shoulders, she dropped her forehead onto his warm solid chest. So solid. He was always so solid.

They stood so solid together.

Joey turned her head, laying her cheek against him, felt his heart beating there, strong and true. A live thriving pulse, its vibrations burrowed deep into her bones, gliding into sinew, flowing through nerves, rushing through veins.

She whispered, "Stay my friend?"

He said, "Always."

XXXXX

…_love your solitude and try to sing out with the pain it causes you, for those who are near you are far away, you write, and this shows that the space around you is beginning to grow vast. And if what is near you is far away, then your vastness is already among the stars and is very great; be happy about your growth, in which of course you can't take anyone with you, and be gentle with those who stay behind… Seek out some simple and true feeling of what you have in common with them, which doesn't necessarily have to alter when you yourself change again and again… but believe in a love that is being stored up for you like an inheritance, and have faith that in this love there is a strength and a blessing so large that you can travel as far as you wish without having to step outside it._

_--Letter #4, from __**Letters to a Young Poet**__ by Rainier Maria Rilke_

It's funny, the things you remember in the aftermath.

Standing before you on a balcony, he offered you his heart. Soft music swirled in the background. The night stars spread out above, neutral and bright. And you acted on a contrary instinct, one that simultaneously screamed "Yes!" that also hollered, "Not now, not yet!" So many years, you jumped at that first reaction, hurtling headlong into misguided intentions and half-formed emotions. But this time, you did not want one more ill-fated reaction. You wanted to _act_, in the very best interests, not just of yours, but his too.

It was not yet time.

He left you there, alone, trembling with your choice, that decision. It was as it should be. But he came back and he offered you his hand. You placed your palm into his, stepped into one more circle his arms made around you, swayed to one last dance. Afterwards, your hands clasped for one long moment, before separating, sorrowful.

You told him, "I don't feel it…" but you did not mean it. Not in the way he thought you did. Those were just words—of course, you felt it. It structures your being, enables you to breathe and walk and progress and be. You felt it—you always did, from that first moment chastely lying next to him in Aunt Gwen's guest bed years ago, when he brushed his arm across your back and your whole being came alive.

But the years have offered lessons you might have been too bull-headed to learn before. You are determined to learn them now. Because the cost grows greater as Time proceeds and there is so much more to lose. Love. Friendship. People. Life. If you gain him now, you will lose far more because you are not ready. This is your end of the lesson. You learned it from him, ironically. He's the King of Letting Go when it is Not Yet Time.

And that's not such a bad thing.

You smell like coffee beans—yet another Starbucks blend. He gave you that large bag as you exited his apartment so very early this morning, a parting gift, and you held it on your lap on the T as you made your way back to Worthington. It was the big corporate-size bag, several pounds, as big as a small baby. As you cradled it there, nestled in your arms, settled on your lap, you thought of that time when you were seventeen and your period came late and you thought you might be pregnant. With Pacey's child.

It scared you then, but also, deep-down, you harbored a tiny secret wonder at the thought that the two of you could have created something together—something that would be sacred and living. Becoming a _someone_ made of you and him. Something Real born into the world from a Love between you two. A romantic notion, it was quickly subsumed by the reality that you were just a teenage girl with goals and dreams far ahead of you and he was just a boy, swiftly imploding. You never told him, don't know if you ever will. Perhaps it's a moot point now. Yet still, on that train, you hugged that coffee bag to your chest for a second, conjuring up a vision of a tiny, angelic, dark-haired baby boy. You and Pacey combined, resurrected in mewling delicate miniature.

Before he gave you that coffee bag this morning, after hours of Staying There in order to leave, so you could Get Here, solitary and finally whole, you cried. So you comforted each other and that was all. Then you both sat down on his couch, lay against one another, exhausted, relieved. Too lazy to move, too sleepy to push off his arm that encircled you out of habit, that clockwork car alarm went off again, loud and intrusive and irritating, jarring both of you. He held you closer and you absorbed him into you, nestling, once more within the circle of his arms amidst the raucous discordance surrounding you both.

In that moment, all was good—all was great.

And you felt blessed.

_In a haze, a stormy haze, I'll be 'round  
I'll be loving you always, always._

_Here I am and I'll take my time  
Here I am and I'll wait in line, always  
Always._

_**Loving You Always**__ by Coldplay_

**Rhapsody Redux  
**

_**Rhap·so·dy n**_  
1 : a portion of an epic poem adapted for recitation  
2 archaic : a miscellaneous collection  
3 a (1) : a highly emotional utterance (2) : a highly emotional literary work (3) : effusively rapturous or extravagant discourse b : RAPTURE, ECSTASY  
4 : a musical composition of irregular form having an improvisatory character

_**Re·dux adj**_  
Etymology: _Latin_, returning, from _reducere_  
to lead back: brought back

**THE END**


End file.
